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Articles
What Type of Salt Are You?
"13You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven." Matthew 5:13-16.
In times of antiquity many stored their salt in a designated hole, often within their homes. Over time the salt that touched the earth became unusable due to moisture. At that point the family would need to remove the salt that had been damaged and throw it out. However the salt could not be thrown out on their land as that could damage the crops. Instead the salt would be thrown out, as Jesus says, on the streets to be "trampled under foot by men."
This reminds me of the words of Jesus in Matthew 9:37-38, "...The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. 38 Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest." Have you ever wondered why there are so few willing to teach others the gospel? Do we need to encourage more men to become preachers? Yes and No! Sure, more men need to become ministers of God's power to save, but no that is not the real context or problem. The real context is that more disciples of Christ, not just evangelists, need to be willing to work in the fields that are plentiful with lost souls seeking answers.
I come back to this salt analogy that Jesus points us to. When I consider Matthew 5 and 9 here are some things that I believe would be good for all of us to consider.
1) Why don’t more disciples do more “work” for Jesus? Perhaps we would like to but we feel like we would be perceived as hypocrites. Maybe our past or current sins hurt our influence with the lost around us. We should remember a part of doing “good works” is keeping ourselves “unspotted from the world” James 1:26-27. It is hard to show the lost the light of Christ when we ourselves are living in the filth and darkness of sin.
2) It would be good for all disciples to ask ourselves a simple question. What kind of salt am I? Are we adding spiritual flavor for Christ to those around us or are we harming the fields around us that are full of influential lost souls?
In Genesis 18:32 Abraham asked the Lord to spare the land of Sodom and Gomorrah if at least 10 righteous souls could be found. Obviously 10 righteous souls were not found and the Lord destroyed the cities for their wickedness. Something that has always struck me is the fact that “righteous Lot” (2 Peter 2:7) lived within the walls of Sodom. Perhaps if Lot would have focused more on adding righteous flavor to Sodom instead of accepting the culture of the day at least 10 souls would have been found to be righteous. How is your influence? Are you living in such a way that you could influence 10 souls around you to be more righteous? "13You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men."
