Salt - a colorless or white crystalline solid chloride, used to preserve and season food. It gives flavor and zest. It is mentioned 41 times in the King James version of the Bible in 35 verses. The Old Testament, mentions the Covenant of Salt (Numbers 18:19; 2 Chronicles 13:5).
If you ate salt with someone, it signified an unbreakable relationship until death. Christ laid down His life for His friends (John15:13). An old saying is, "A good friend is worth their weight in salt."
Meat was soaked in salt to get the blood out of it, to make it kosher. Elisa healed the waters with salt, 2 Kings 2:20, 21.
Job 6:6 speaks about salt in food. Salt is important in cooking. There's a proven theory about cooking steak. This method is that you do not add the salt to the meat until it is almost done (especially if you have a tough cut of meat).
If you add the salt too soon, a tough cut of meat will never get tender. This is how we can view God's timing in our lives. He lets us simmer in trials and tribulations, and just when we think we are going under, here comes the salt.
He seasons us with love, grace and mercy. We become pliable, tender, and teachable so that His perfect will can be worked in us.
As we become salted, we begin to mirror Jesus and become salt to others. When we walk in the Spirit we are salted with the fire of the Holy Ghost (Mark 9:49a).
The apostles of old were salted to the bone. Even their clothes had a special anointing on them (Acts 19:11, 12). Their presence was so salted with the anointing of God that their very shadow healed people as the passed by them (Acts 5:12-16).
Jesus told us that we will do greater works (John 14:12). Pass the salt. Fulfill the Great Commission.
Do what God has called you to do. Do it well and with a thankful heart. Do not look at that saltshaker of another; keep yours full and start seasoning the corner God has called you to.
Matthew 25:35-45 illustrates how we can be the salt of the earth. Our personalities and speech must be salty. Colossians 4:6 says," Let your speech be always with grace, that you may know how you should answer every man." Proverbs 18:21 points out that death and life are in the power of the tongue.
The strong are salty when they bear up the weak (Romans 15:1). Be salty; speak the truth in love. "He which converts the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins" (James 5:20).
As we grow in Christ, we learn how to pinch the salt. Sometimes we have to keep adding a little salt to the situation to get it to the right level.
Too much of anything can ruin the whole pot, but the right amount can be very pleasing to the taste.
The Bible says, "O taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8). The Holy Spirit is salt to us by developing Godly character in us. He works through us to be the salt of the earth, as we are commanded to be.
Salt is good; but if the salt have lost his saltiness, wherewith will you season it? (Mark 9:50, also Matthew 5:13) Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.
Carroll is an evangelist with Well Women International Ministries Inc. and a member of Door Fellowship, 470 Pine St.
