Are You Salty?
After you’ve been a Christian for a while, you’ve likely read or heard about a lot of the most popular stories in the Bible. We know about God’s promised heir to Abraham and Sarah, the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, and Daniel’s courage while in exile. We’ve learned about the Beatitudes, the feeding of the five thousand, and Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.
The beauty of already knowing some of these stories is that we are able to discover new things when we encounter them afresh. One of my favorite practices is going slowly through a familiar story or passage and seeing what new facet I can discover about God, myself, or the world around us.
Are You Salty?
Recently, I was reading Luke 14 and encountered verse 34:
“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?”
How have you heard this verse taught before? Or how have you thought about this verse in the past?
For me, this verse has been used most often in the context of evangelism. We’re salty to help preserve others, and our goal is to make others salty as well. And it’s our saltiness that will help preserve our family, city, or community.
When I recently reread this verse, I was struck by the next verse, which I think helps provide additional meaning. Let’s look at Luke 14:34-35 together.
“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.”
“Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”
What’s Your Salt Good For?
I think the addition of verse 35 changes the meaning of the previous verse. In this context, the purpose of salt isn’t to make a meal more flavorful. It’s not even to be used to preserve a piece of meat. Salt, in these verses, is meant for the soil or the manure pile.
I don’t know about you, but one of those two places (the soil) seems preferable to the other (the manure pile). But what strikes me about these options is that they are both connected to planting and growing. What if our position as salt in the world isn’t about preserving or bringing flavor, but about bearing fruit?
In this light, this salt metaphor reminds me of Jeremiah 29. The Israelites are sent into exile in Babylon, but God is with them and has a purpose for them. Here’s God’s instruction at the beginning of the chapter:
“Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
Jeremiah 29:5-7
Related Post: A New Look at God’s Promises
What if we are planted in our families, churches, friend groups, and communities to bear fruit? What if God has placed us there to help with collective flourishing? What if we are there to die to ourselves so that life may be experienced by those we’re in relationship with?
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Throughout the Bible, we are instructed to bear fruit. Over and over again, Jesus instructs those who listened to Him to bear fruit—the amount of fruit may vary from person to person, but our faith should always result in fruit bearing. And not just any fruit, but the fruit of the Spirit.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
Galatians 5:22-23
Let’s be the salt that is planted in our communities to encourage fruitfulness. May we be the ones who bear the fruit of the Spirit and create spaces for others to do the same. Let’s be those who cultivate the soil for our communities and neighborhoods to flourish.
