You are the salt of the earth

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Matthew 5:13

Jesus said these words to the crowds on the mountainside after delivering some of the best known words in the Bible, what we have called the Beatitudes, or as some say, the ‘blessed attitudes’. If Christians are the salt of the earth what does this mean and can salt lose its saltiness?

Salt is a mineral comprised mainly of the two elements, sodium and chloride. When we speak of salt, we mean unrefined, unprocessed, sodium chloride plus all of the other 82 natural occurring mineral elements held within the crystalline structure of the salt in its original form; holistic, wholesome, unaltered, and natural, the crystallised remains of an ancient, primal ocean that evaporated over 250,000,000 years ago. Life on earth is not possible without salt.

The word salt comes from the Latin word, sal. In ancient times, the Roman soldiers were paid with salt. The Latin word salarium; meaning a payment made in salt, is the root of the word salary. The word sal is synonymous with its root origin, sol, again synonymous with the Sole, Latin for Sun. Mythologically, and from definition, sole means "liquid sunlight", the liquid materialization of the sun's energy bound into the geometric structure of a cube, capable of creating and sustaining life. Interestingly, our blood contains the same salty solution as that of the sea; that is, a fluid consisting of water and salt. This salty water flows through more than 56,000 miles of waterways and blood vessels throughout our organism with the forces of gravity and levity and regulates and balances every single function of our body. There can be no thoughts or actions without the presence of salt in the body.

The benefits of salt are numerous. Salt has a tremendous power to transform. From a scientific view, salt has a unique property. Unlike other crystalline structures that are molecular, salt’s atomic structure is electrical. That is why salt is so transformable. It has the ability to give up or surrender its material structure and transform into something electrical, ions. When we combine salt with water, the salt dissolves and the minerals that are hidden inside the cubic form are released as ions, both positively and negatively charged particles. The result is a supercharged potion of ionised minerals.

So can salt lose its saltiness? John Gaydos says, “the salt that people had in past days was not the highly refined salt we have today. It was a rock salt. Somewhat similar to the rock salt we use in making ice cream or the kind we throw down on our sidewalks to melt ice and to provide traction. If the salt in rock salt is washed away, one is left with only a few small bits of rock. Or if you leave rock salt out exposed to humid air, the salt will evaporate and again you will only be left with a few small pieces of rock. Even today, the refined salt that you buy at the grocery store still has small pieces of rock in it – just look at it closely or examine it under a microscope! You will be surprised what you may find in it!”

The uses of salt are many whether to repel cutworms in a garden, to ease bee stings, to help whip cream more easily, or to keep apples and potatoes from turning brown once they have been peeled, salt is also most notably used to preserve food and to add taste to food.

For Christians then, salt has both an important inner and outer part to play. We can only derive our inner saltiness from spending time with God and His Word, and only as a result of time with God, are we able to be salt in the world. Just as salt can lose its saltiness and get thrown out (Luke 14:34 - 35), it is possible for us to lose our saltiness and end up on a manure pile. Just as salt regulates and controls our bodies, the Word of God needs to be known in order for our spiritual lives to be regulated and controlled by the Holy Spirit.

As people in the world we need to be the salt of the earth. If our inner lives are not ‘salty’, I can’t see that we can be the salt of the earth. The role that we as Christians play in order to ‘preserve’ the earth should not be underestimated. I believe that we temper morality by our very presence. It is essential then that we ensure that the saltiness of our inner lives is maintained through regular time with God.