Good morning. Have you considered salt lately? I doubt it. Today, salt is common, cheap, iodized, and readily available. That wasn’t always the case. If we are going to consider salt, one of the first things to think about is how vital it is. Salt, for you science buffs out there, is written as NaCl. It is an ionic compound made of sodium and chloride ions. There, now that I have that out of the way, we can move on:-) We humans are quite dependent on salt in some form to survive, and while that is true today it was an even more urgent truth in the first century, the days of Jesus on earth.
Back in the first century salt was vital for purification as well as preservation. If you wanted anything edible to remain so for long it was typically treated with salt to purify it from micro-organisms and thereby to prevent spoilage. When you live in a world of high heat and no refrigeration, you’d better have a way to preserve your foods, or seasons when fresh foods aren’t grown would be all the more difficult.
Rome recognized the need and built a special highway primarily to provide a thoroughfare for the transportation of salt from the Adriatic Sea. It was called the via solaria (the road of salt). Have you heard that Roman soldiers were sometimes paid in salt? That is quite true. In fact, the word “salary” is the Latin word for salt. At times, the price of an ounce of salt exceeded the price of an ounce of gold. That may sound like a stretch, but remember, you can live without gold, but you can’t live without salt.
On a more horrible note, if you have heard of Timbuktu, it was a city that was formed for the trading of salt for slaves. This is where the idea “worth his salt” came into being.
Why my sudden preoccupation with salt? I wanted us to consider some of the background of salt as we would consider three sayings, or teachings, of Christ that use salt. They are found in Mark 9:49-50.
Everyone will be salted with fire. “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”
The context of these verses is Jesus teaching that personal purity is of the utmost importance. He uses the most extreme examples imaginable by saying that: “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea. Mark 9:42 Jesus follows that statement by saying that if it is your hand, or your foot, or even your eye that is causing you to stumble from a righteous place before God, it would be better to lose that appendage or organ rather than suffer the consequence of unrepentant sin, which is hell. After those statements Jesus proclaims three truths in which salt is at the center of His teaching.
1. Everyone will be salted with fire. To be “salted” means to be purified and preserved. It is a verb form and the intention is to teach that everyone is going to be tried and tested. Such testing will either prepare that person for a righteous life leading to heaven, or it will result in the destruction of those who refuse to be made pure.
2. Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Because salt is, as I indicated in the first paragraph, an ionic compound, it cannot change into anything else. It would seem to be impossible for that which is salt to become something less. Is Jesus wrong? No. In the first century, salt was mined or processed and would be purchased in various levels of purity. As salt was gleaned from the bag, processed to be separated from the impurities in a variety of ways, what was left in the bag became increasingly “unsalty.” The bag of salt increasingly lost its saltiness as true salt was removed and a higher percentage of impurities remained. What Jesus is telling us, is that if we personally and collectively take out what is righteous and rely upon what is worldly we will become increasingly left with that which is not of God. This will lead us away from Him and leave us stranded and without power. One thing was sure of the bag of salt, once the salt was taken out you could never put it back again.
3. Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.” This is telling us that it is in purity that we find peace with one another. It is when we allow the ideas and priorities of the world to infiltrate and to guide us that discord and problems arise.
It is all about purity and preservation. When we allow the Lord to bring us purity through His love, His Word, and His sacrifice, we are preserved from spoilage in a tainted world.
God bless!
Vern