Be Salt and Light

 “You shall season all grain offerings with salt.  You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your god be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt.”

 

Grain offerings were given as first fruits. When someone was farming and those first fruits of crushed fresh new grain from the harvest for the year. It is offered for a pleasing aroma to the Lord.  It was never to include leaven (a representation of pride and inequity, Matthew 16:6) but always to be seasoned with salt.  

 

 Salt has an interesting place in the Bible.  It is known for several properties.   First of all, salt cannot break down into other elements or decompose over time.   Salt is salty, whether it is in liquid or hard form.  You have to add enough impurities to salt to cause it to lose its saltiness.  

 

I was reading about the “salt of the Covenant” and it was used back in time to speak of relationship and friendship.   When people would make a covenant with each other, they would add salt to represent the priority of maintaining a great friendship and relationship as part of their agreement.   Coming back to salt not decomposing, in essence, they were saying their friendship would be the priority and not decompose as part of the agreement.

 

We see this with Numbers 18:19 in care for the priests and their special position of serving the Lord.  Moses tells the priests, “All the holy offerings that the Israelites present to the LORD I give to you and to your sons and daughters as a permanent statute. It is a permanent covenant of salt before the LORD for you and your offspring.”

 

Salt has also been used as an agent of the covenant to bring life and healing.  Joshua had cursed Jericho at the time they had overtaken it.  As a result, the water was bad, and the land was unfruitful.   So Elisha took a jar of salt and went to the spring of water and threw the salt in it and said,  

 

 “’Thus says the Lord, ‘I have purified these waters; there shall not be from there death or unfruitfulness any longer.’ So the waters have been purified to this day, according to the word of Elisha which he spoke.”  (2 Kings 2: 19-22, NASB)

 

We also know that salt was used for judgment, like sulfur.  When land was under the judgment of the Lord, it would be sown with salt to represent its lack of fertility due to the wrath of God upon it.   And Lot’s wife, when she looked back as she was instructed not to do, coming out of Sodom, she turned into a pillar of salt.  (Genesis 19:22)

 

In Judges 9:45, salt is used to deem a land as wasted. Before he died with a milestone dropped on his head, Abimelek attacked a city that rebelled against him, captured it, and killed all the people. Then, in destroying the city, he scattered salt over it. 

All that to say, that salt, as a shadow in the Old Testament, was not neutral.  One more example, when someone finished purification, one was to present an unblemished bull and ram from their flock to the Lord and the priests were to sprinkle salt on them before sacrificing them.

 

We all know that salt, besides preserving food, maintaining its character, healing land, bringing judgment, and representing a covenant relationship, it enhances flavor.   Salt never is great on its own, but when added to food, it makes it taste much better.

 

All that to say, here comes the key element of being salt in the earth. As Christians, filled with the Holy Spirit, we make situations much better when we are added to them.   We bring preservation of what is good, healing, judgment, and purification.  We subtly draw out the things that are hidden from the natural eye and enhance it.  We are the salt of the earth! 

 

Being salt is who we are and not what we have to be. With the Holy Spirit in us, we bring this to every situation we encounter. The only way we can lose this saltiness is through impurity. When we allow impurities in our lives, we slowly lose our saltiness.

 

We bring forth and enhance the Kingdom of God in our every encounter as we do life.  Jesus says we are the salt of the earth in Matthew 5:13, and then goes on in the next verse to say that we are the light of the world.  A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.  

 

This tells us that our saltiness of the covenant has to do with bringing forth the Kingdom and also leading others to Christ.   Paul says in Colossians 4:6 to let our speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt. 

 

Salt makes us thirsty.   Salt makes us want more of something.    When we are in connection with God, in an intimate friendship with Him, others can see His goodness through us in a way that makes them hungry and thirsty for righteousness.

 

Being salt and light, we help others to come to know and encounter Christ.  We testify of His goodness with not only our words but with all that we bring.   We add our saltiness and make others thirsty for a Kingdom where they can thrive and flourish like us.

 

Salt, being an element that adds to what it is brought in contact with, is not a significant thing in itself.  Salt, in a way, is humbly applied to make what it is used for a pleasing offering. 

 

Reading back about the offerings, at the time, the temple of the Lord was central.   For ages, the Temple became central among the Israelites.   The temple was so central to the Israelites that it continuously became an idol for the people.  It was destroyed in judgment by the Babylonians and then rebuilt. 

 

Jesus had said, speaking of His body, to tear it down and He would raise it back up in 3 days.  People were offended by this, thinking He was speaking of the temple.  Whenever something causes us to be offended, it may be tied to an idol.  In making the temple central, the Israelites had made it an idol.  All that to say, as salt and light, we are to hold all things loosely.   Our significance comes from being salty and not from something we build, own, or achieve.   Our ministries are not our saltiness; we are the salt additive.

 

And coming back to our offerings being sprinkled with salt, our offerings need to be more than going through the rote motions of doing something because we feel an obligation.  We want to give our offerings sprinkled with salt.   We want them to reflect our personal friendship with the Lord and our gratitude for the covenant relationship.  

 

Lord Jesus, let us be salt and light to everyone who we encounter.  May we shine Your goodness and mercy.  Through us, may others come to know You.