“. . . If the salt loses its flavor . . .” (Matthew 5:14)
Surreal, chilled, shrouded in darkness, and dauntingly deep—the massive cave quarried principally by hand into the Romania underground supplied salt for decades. Surrounded by tons of salt the following question flooded my thoughts. How could salt have been there for millennia waiting to be harvested and still it is salty? Just a minute—does salt ever lose its flavor or purposefulness? Jesus indicated that it could. How long does that take? Jesus said, Christians were the “salt of the earth” but then he asked a searching question, “If the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?”
Why would Jesus refer to salt losing saltiness? Salt has been in the earth thousands of years and it is salty still! Science can demonstrate that salt, even after processed, has a really long shelf life and there is really only one way salt can lose its saltiness—it must become mixed with something that dissolves the sodium chloride. In this way it can indeed lose its saltiness.
For a believer this means that their life becomes mixed or diluted in worldliness so that their testimony is weakened and rendered ineffective. No longer will they display an appetizing faith for someone hungering for true answers. The Christian who lives carelessly close to worldliness can indeed lose his or her saltiness, their flavor, or the taste that makes faith in Christ palatable for those who are searching.
Stay close and clean in Christ….stay salty!
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