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Salt often gets a bad rap these days. It’s blamed for high blood pressure and heart disease, and we’re always cautioned, “Watch your salt intake!” So, why did Jesus call us the salt of the world? (Matthew 5:13) As an eight-year veteran of the Army, I’ve long known that you have to replace salt after heavy sweating. (Hence, one of Gatoraid’s chief ingredients is salt.) As a cook for thirty years (I started very young!), I know that it is used in everything from cakes and breads to sauces and soups. But I’ve never known why, and those bare facts never really explained why Christians need to be “the salt of the world.” After years of wondering, I finally decided to find out more about salt.
Did you know that there are seven different types of salt? Of course there’s table salt, sea salt, pickling salt and rock salt, but there’s also Kosher salt, black salt, and bamboo salt. These different salts have many different uses, but what do they do. Here’s some interesting facts that I found out about salt:
- The chemical composition of salt is sodium chloride (NaCl), two essential minerals to sustain life. (Common table salt ups the ante by adding iodine, essential for thyroid health.)
- Salt controls leavening agents in bread, giving it a more even consistency.
- As a seasoning, salt enhances the flavor of foods by balancing sweetness and acidity. It’s what makes that chocolate so very delicious as it blends the sweetness of pure sugar with the bitterness of pure chocolate.
- Salt increases the temperature at which water boils and decreases the temperature at which it melts. Therefore, when you put pasta in “rapidly boiling salted water,” the water is hotter than 212°F, and when you put salt on ice, it causes it to melt even if the ambient temperature is below 32°F. (So, the next time your kid gets his tongue frozen to the flag pole, just sprinkle some table salt on his tongue!)
- Used as a preservative, salt makes life difficult for microorganisms by sucking the water out of their sells. (Therefore it was used on the “dunghill.” Luke 14:35 (NKJV))
- Rock salt or salt brine is used to make sodium nitrite for fertilizers. (So it was used “for the soil.” Luke 14:35(NIV))
- While necessary to life, salt must be used in moderation, balanced with the rest of the “ingredients” in its environment, be it in food, bodies, fertilizer or water.
Salt is wonderful, complex, life-giving, misaligned, and persecuted. And Jesus called us the salt of the world!
Are you salty? Do you provide the necessary ingredient for bodies to help sustain life eternal? Do you give an even consistency to the daily “bread” of your relationships? Do you balance love and correction? Can you heat things up when they need heating, and melt away trouble? Do you make life difficult for the devil and his minions? Do you provide fertilizer for the seeds God’s planted in your life? Do you live in moderation, balancing all the resources God’s given you for effective stewardship?
Let salt be your model in living.
S – Serve God, and others with a cheerful heart.
A – Acquire a closer walk with God through personal devotions and fellowship
L – Lead with your actions, words, and life.
T – Today!
Strive to be salt in the places God wants to use you. Jesus warned us “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for manure pile; it is thrown out.” Luke 14:34-35 (NIV)
Don’t become a Christian who’s lost his saltiness.
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