Thought for the Month - February 2017

"Salt of the earth" by Barry Adair
(Northern Ireland style)

It's still the time of the year in Northern Ireland for the gritters to go out and about spreading rock salt on our roads. One just passed me the other night and seemed to put more grit on my car than on to the road! Unlike many countries in the world, mind you, our rock salt is a very local commodity. The only salt mine in Ireland is in Kilroot, near Carrickfergus and supplies Northern Ireland, among other countries, with all our de-icing grit. By the way, the mine is more than a century old and contains passages running for 30 miles up to 1200 feet underground. Up to half a million tonnes of this gritty rock salt is mined every year. Its use is the main reason why our roads remain accessible to traffic throughout the winter.

As I thought more about salt I also looked into its myriad of uses. Many we will know, but perhaps not all -

• critical for human life (regulates water in our bodies)
• preserving (keeping food from going bad)
• seasoning (and great on chips)
• de-icer (roads)
• fertiliser (crops)
• disinfectant (remember being told to bathe a cut in the sea?)
• antiseptic (as above)
• healing (as above)
• cleansing (as above)

That's some list of uses, I'm sure you will agree. Nowadays salt is a common commodity and is relatively cheap to extract. However, this was not the case long ago and so its value was much greater. Is it any wonder that in the days of the Roman Empire soldiers were sometimes paid in salt? In fact, it's where we get our word for salary from. I also see that salt is spoken about quite a few times in the Bible, and it is one such mention that I would like to talk about this month…

"You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its flavour, with what will it be salted? It is then good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under the feet of men." (Matthew 5:13)

When the Bible talks about salt in the Bible it is in relation to many of its uses given in the list above. Jesus' use of the phrase "You are the salt of the earth" is perhaps the most often quoted. But what exactly does the phrase mean? Is it meant for Christians today as well as the disciples it was spoken to? And if so, how close are we to meeting this standard?

One commentator has provided a good summary of our verse this month…

Jesus, perhaps in thinking of the preservative quality of salt, is showing how the disciples were called to preserve society and the world around them from moral decay.

And another writer answers the question about whether this verse is meant for Christians today…

A true Christian will have to be a disciple of Christ as well. That is, he has counted the cost and has totally committed his life to following Jesus. He accepts the call to sacrifice and follows wherever the Lord leads. The Christian disciple completely adheres to the teaching of Jesus, makes Christ his number-one priority, and lives accordingly. He is actively involved in making other Christian disciples.

The second part of verse 13 is rather unsettling, especially as the content is meant for more than just Jesus' disciples. Jesus added that if the salt loses its flavour, it is good for nothing but to be trampled underfoot. This appears to be a reference to salt that is contaminated with other minerals, causing a loss in its flavour and effectiveness. It reminds me about the dangers of deviating from the teachings found in God's word. And in a world filled with sin and deceit, it is so easy for us to become contaminated and therefore ineffective as disciples of the Lord Jesus.

When my Mum was in hospital a few years ago one symptom she had was confusion. It turned out to be nothing more than a salt imbalance (blood electrolytes). As we listed earlier, salt is essential for life and for health. Our world today is unbalanced, confused and sick. Just prior to writing this Thought I was reading about the demands for both abortion and single sex marriage to be made legal and freely available in Northern Ireland. And on my TV screen was the dreadful suffering of children in Aleppo (Syria) and children caught up in the 'forgotten famine' in Yemen. Where is the preserving salt? Where is the moral leadership? Where is the church? Where are you and I?

As we've seen, Jesus used the analogy of salt to describe how Christians are needed to bring balance and hope to an otherwise dying world. As the 'salt of the earth' Christians should be preservatives to the world, preserving it from moral decay and the evil inherent in ungodly men and women in places of power and authority.

In Northern Ireland most of the salt I see is "cast out and trodden" by vehicles on our roads. The preserving salt that Jesus spoke about is harder to see and yet I know it is there in our communities. As Christians, let us all do our part, while relying totally on God working within us, to be salt in the neighbourhoods where God has placed us.

You are the salt of the earth.

Until next month (DV)…

Are you SURE that you have your place booked in Heaven? Read this if you're not!

PS The Disaster's Emergency Committee website is here if you would like to donate to the Yemen Crises Appeal)