“You are the salt of the earth….”Matthew 5:13
The Lord has just finished the introduction, the Beatitudes, in His Sermon on the Mount. He described fully for His listeners what true belief in God is like. He ended the Beatitude section by telling His listeners that those who live this way will be persecuted by the world around them. As the Lord says these words the listeners’ minds have to go back to the prophets who spoke for God and were killed by their own countrymen as well as those who were under attack by foreign nations, like Hananiah, Azariah and Mishael. The Lord then moves to the second theme in His sermon. What will be the impact on the world if this produces live in this Godly manner? John McArthur clearly points out that the salt and light passages deal with the way we are to influence the world around us, he impact our lives should have.
Without a break the Lord moves to His first application of living the beatitudes.
You The Lord uses the same pronoun He uses in verse 12. He addresses that group who truly know God and live and serve God the way He intended – those who live out the Beatitudes,.
Are the salt The Lord compares the true believer of God to the salt of the earth. Salt is mentioned over 40 times in the Bible. It is s very important and valuable element of life in Jesus’ time. When we read this passage we think of the table salt that we use at meals. The Lord’s listeners would think of salt in a much broader and far important ways than that.
The Romans believed that, other than the sun, nothing was more valuable than salt. Many Romans, including Roman soldiers, were paid in salt, which is where the phrase “He’s not worth his salt” was coined. This thought would encourage the Lord’s listeners after just learning that the Godly would suffer persecution. Yest they would be hated by the world to the point of physical suffering but in God’s sight they are highly valuable. But why? What is the value salt produces? We will review the various uses of salt in that time and their application of living the Godly life.
Of the earth The word for earth refers to the land and all its inhabitants. The Lord makes it clear the sphere of influence for His followers is this earth and its population. He does not take us out of the earth but leaves us here with the people who want to harm us and will persecute and revile us. At the same time God does call His followers to be the “honey’” of the earth. We are not here to attract and placate but to come in contact with and influence.
What can we learn? One thing we should notice about salt at the very beginning is that it is a very stable element. Because the two elements that form it, sodium and chloride, form a complete bond there is no attraction to other elements that may want to join to it. This is the way the believer is to interact with the world. We are told to be in the world but not of the world. Because we have a perfect bond with Christ there should be attraction to or bonding with anything the world can offer us.
Second we see that for salt to have influence it must actually touch other elements. When the salt makes the impact it changes the other element, not the reverse. Salt is very different what it contacts. Salt does not become like the item it touches rather it transforms what it touches into something better. Salt transmits its characteristics to the other item and changes it. This is exactly what the believer is to do in the world. Christ leaves His followers on this earth to make an impact on the evil world around it. Followers are not to isolate themselves
from the world but come in contact with the world to impact it or influence it. At the same time we, like salt, do not take on the
world’s impurities because of our perfect bond with God.
Third, just as salt was valuable to the ones who owned so are believers valuable to One who owns them and places them in this world. The difficulties the illustration of salt to convey to the believer how precious they are to God despite the rejection they will face on earth Precious and reviled at the same time – the dual result of the influence of the Christ follower.