What is Salt?

Hey y’all! It’s your girl, Julie, back with another segment of “Salty & Lit!” In this post, we’ll be talking about what it means to be salt. Let’s get started!

Father, You are so good. Thank You for letting us be our identities: salt. Teach us to live it out. Amen.

When you think of salt, what do you think of? Do you think of salt on a table, do you think of salt on the sand, or do you think of salt in another context? What if I told you you were salt? No, not that bland thing that you think people use to add flavor. But that thing that has flavor. You are salt, my friend.

Don’t believe me? Check this out!

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.” (Matthew 5:13, ESV)

When you think of salt, do you think of what it means to be “the salt of the earth?” I didn’t, but I did some research, and I learned that when you’re called the salt of the earth, you’re a person that’s held in high esteem. Crazy to think that salt could be seen as high esteem when we treat it as basic. However, I think that’s what makes salt so great: salt has so many uses: it’s used as a seasoning, fine-grained, and high purity, it’s used as a preservative, so when used at sacrifices, it marked a seal of an obligation to fidelity, and lastly, it was used as a currency back in the day (Wood et al., 2024).

Y’all, we downplayed salt (well, I have), and God is calling us to see ourselves as salt (not the way the world does, but the way He does). He says we are the salt of the earth, but what happens if the salt loses its taste? Let me give you a chemistry lesson real quick; it’s actually extremely hard for salt to lose its flavor. It’s chemical compounds are so stable that salt can’t lose its flavor unless it was never salt to begin with.

Jesus, in this passage, calls us salt of the earth, recognizing that we won’t lose flavor as long as we stay connected to Him. As we are pure, we’re able to have that influence that salt has on the spaces it covers.

We have influence y’all. Have you ever had water and someone added salt to it? My guess is that you noticed there was salt added, and my guess is that you didn’t enjoy what was happening.

And that’s what I guess is our role with salt. There are times in which it’ll be “good” but there are times when it might not seem as good. Regardless, salt is salt. It can’t break its identity to appease to the things it comes in contact with. When God calls us salt, I think it’s the same way. We’re not called to dissolve; we’re called to preserve. Preserve what? The world that we are in today.

Due to sin running rampant, we can’t just stand by and let evil take its course; we have to take our positions as salt, so we can preserve the world and influence the world the way God calls us to. You’re salty, don’t forget that! And in my next post, we’ll be talking about what it means to be lit, so with that, don’t forget you’re lit! 🧡

References

Wood, F. Osborne, Hills, John M. and Ralston, Robert H. (2024, December 6). salt. Encyclopedia Britannica.

https://www.britannica.com/science/salt