Salt of the Earth

Those familiar with Godspell can't read this passage and not think about the song "Light of the World." I attached it below for your viewing pleasure. So as Christians what can we take from this comparison to salt?

The first way we as Christians are like salt is, Christians Like Salt Are Of Infinite Value.

Jesus said to his followers “You are the salt of the earth.” Why salt? Why not something sweet or something that tastes good. Why not something that smells good? Why salt? Jesus refers to his handful of disciples, disciples that were just like you and me, and he referred to them as the salt of the earth. What great dignity Jesus bestows on his followers. What a great compliment! You see salt was a necessity of life in ancient times. Such great value was attached to it. Salt was so important that it was sometimes used for money. The Roman soldiers of Jesus’ day were at times paid with salt. In fact, our word “salary” comes from the Latin word salarium which referred to the payments to the soldiers with salt. People still use the phrase saying that someone either is, or is not, “worth their salt.” We don’t think much about salt because we can get as much of it in pure form as we want. It is just the little white shaker on the table. Better yet the big blue cylinder in the cabinet. But when you are completely dependent on salt to preserve your food, and when it is so valuable that it is used in the place of money, you get a completely different perspective on salt.
Because we live in a part of the world where we have an abundance of food we don’t understand the monotony of the diet of those who lived in Jesus’ day and for most of those who live in third world countries even today. In a great portion of the world rice is the common food, three times a day. In part of Africa today the common food is corn meal, at every meal. Corn meal alone doesn’t have much flavor. Without salt to make it palatable, it would be difficult to continue to swallow the same monotonous food, time after time.

Christians Like Salt Are Of Infinite Value and…

Second, Christians Like Salt Act As A Preservative.
Salt was important for survival, because it was the only way they had to preserve meat. Obviously, they were not as privileged as we are with refrigeration, so salt became very important in their ability to preserve their food. The salt was rubbed into the meat before it was stored. It was used to hinder the process of decay. In the same way Christians are given the task of hindering the decay of our world.

There is a book by [D. James Kennedy. “What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?” (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Pub., 1994) pp. 3- 4] and he talks about Christianity and it’s effect on the world. Christianity has in fact had a profound positive effect on the world. The most dramatic impact of Christianity on the world is that it has attached new value to human life. Prior to Christianity infanticide, and abandonment of children was a common practice. Hospitals as we now know them began through influence of Christianity. The Red Cross was started by an evangelical Christian. Almost every one of the first 123 colleges and universities in the United States has Christian origins, founded by Christians for Christian purposes. The same could be said of orphanages, adoption agencies, humane treatment of the insane, the list goes on and on of dramatic impact of Christianity in our world.
However with all of that good, and all the good that we do. We’re not perfect and we still sin like those who are not Christians. There are still temptations and evils that we fall victim to.

If we as Christian’s lose the qualities of Christlikeness that make us distinct then we become like the society around us, we no longer have a positive impact. We become a hindrance instead of a preservative.

Third, Christians Like Salt Are to Promote Thirst.
In arid climates and athletic competitions it is used to promote thirst. Christians are to make Christ attractive and desirable.
In Titus 2:9 the Apostle Paul tells Christian servants that they must act in such a way “that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.” The idea is here is that Christian servants (any Christian for that matter) have the power through their behavior to make the Christian life and faith beautiful to those outside.
Whenever we as Christians are introduced into a setting, whether it is social or work related, the unbelievers should see evidence of the difference that Jesus Christ makes in our lives. They should be able to look at us and say, “I don’t know what they have but I want it.”
Christians Like Salt Should Promote Thirst and…

Fourth, Christians Like Salt Can Lose Their Usefulness. (v. 13b)
Jesus says that if the salt loses its flavor, (v. 13b) “… It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.”
Technically speaking, salt cannot lose its saltiness; sodium chloride is a stable compound. But in the part of the world where Jesus lived, salt was collected from around the Dead Sea where the crystals were often contaminated with other minerals. These crystallized formations were full of impurities, and since the actual salt was more soluble than the impurities, the rain could wash out the salt, which made what was left of little worth since it lost its saltiness. When this happened, the salt was thrown out, since it was no longer of any value either as a preservative or for flavoring.
When the salt was leached out it still looked like salt, but it lost its taste. The essential difference can be leached out of a Christian’s life by the constant flow of the world’s values through our lives.

“The peculiar property of salt is that even though it may have lost its pungency,… it still retains one very devastating potency. This rare and remarkable material can still …. destroy plant life on the land…. the same principle applies in the case of the Christian. Either our lives or counting for good and for God or they are making an impact for evil and the enemy…. The way we live, the things we say the attitudes we entertain, the lifestyle we adopt… are continuously producing either positive or negative results in society…. Our lives, whether we are aware or not either count for God or against Him. There simply is no middle ground.” [W. Phillip Keller. Salt for Society. (Waco: Word Books, 1981) p. 145-149]
Christians Like Salt Can Lose Their Usefulness and….

Finally, Christians Like Salt Must Have Contact To Have An Influence!
As we have already noted, the Christian is to be a preserving force in the world wherever God has placed them. But the salt never did any good when it was sitting on a shelf some place and the meat was somewhere else. To be effective, the salt had to be rubbed into the meat. In a similar way Christian’s are to allow God use them wherever he has placed them.
Whenever the church becomes a salt warehouse, it has missed out on the lesson that salt must make contact to have an affect.

Conclusion
I want you to notice what Jesus says and does not say, He does not say, “You all can be the salt of the earth.” Nor does he say, “You all should be the salt of the earth.” Jesus says “You are the salt of the earth”
So...
To be salt, we do not have to be spectacular.
To be salt, we do not have to be sensational.
To be salt, we do not have to be successful. By the world’s standards.

To be salt, we just have to effect our little corner of the world.