salt shaken

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

We are the salt of the earth. We Christians benefit the world by the spread of the gospel like so many grains of salt scattered abroad into the world. We flavor a tasteless culture and preserve a dying generation. We add the seasoning holiness of God so that some will thirst after God and His righteousness. We are indeed the ONLY salt of the earth.

As I think of being a living picture of this sermon metaphor from Jesus, my mind creates an acrostic to tease out the implications of being the salt of the earth. This is not inspired. It is not meant for this acrostic to exposit the phrase. Rather, it stirs thought for a few reflective applications:

S - Season what is bland. Their world is tasteless when it comes to holiness. Evil is now good. My life in Jesus are a few shakes of salt to flavor a world with the salt of righteousness in the gospel. That salt, when mixed with Christian community, adds holiness in distinct flavor differences to the garbage slop dishes served up in a rotten world.

A - Attract with the flavor of Jesus. Salt adds the attraction. Salty Christianity is winsome, not repulsive. Sinners flocked to the grace of Jesus. And so they should when the Church is truly salt.

L - Live in love. That’s how Jesus said the world would know His people to be radically different (John 13:35). The love of Christ is the saltiest seasoning, but it is not truly shaken out into the world unless it is sprinkled out by the reality of the gospel. A social gospel devoid of the cross and the resurrection is bland. We lovingly live and proclaim the love of God in Christ by proclaiming redemption and restoration in Christ. And we do it because God loves the world.

T - Teach the gospel generationally. The gospel will preserve Christ’s church as we make lasting impact to each new generation. We are always preaching the good news of the kingdom, always making new disciples of Jesus, always making Jesus known. We stop doing that? The salt has lost its saltiness and we are “no longer good for anything.”