ON THE VANGUARD

UNFIT SALT
“’You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.’”
Matthew 5:13

As a guy who loves to cook and has thought many times about going to culinary school, I have seen salt used in a variety of different ways. Sometimes it is used to preserve a product from going bad. This method was used daily in early years before the refrigerator was birthed, but is seen often still in canned food. For instance, a can of corn can have as much as 200mg of salt whereas a bag of frozen corn may have none. The reason the can has so much is because it works to preserve the product. But salt is also obviously used as a flavor enhancer. Just recently I made some homemade split pea soup at the request of my son and when I took a bite my first thought was that it was a little bland. By adding just a shake or two of salt the soup took on a whole new flavor.
While the purpose of today’s devotional is not to give you a simple book report on salt, it is to challenge you in reference to salt…or more so to challenge you to be like salt. Before we go farther though, I want to bring your attention to both Matthew 5:13 and Titus 1:15-16. The verse in Matthew records Jesus saying, “’You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.’” Compare the relationship of this verse with the one in Titus which reads, “To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny Him. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for doing anything good.”
The theme between these two verses seems to be the unfitness of the one whose actions do not reflect God. In Matthew we see that we are salt. However, flavorless salt does nothing. If salt is meant to be an enhancement of flavor, that little spice that adds to the food and preserves the meat, then what happens when the salt loses the ability it was intended for? When the salt has lost its flavor is can do nothing but get in the way. And in a way, Paul is saying the exact same thing here in Titus. People claim to know God, and claim to be pure. But corruptions sneak in. If these corruptions remove the flavor of salt, which is supposed to be us, then what? Then nothing is pure; nothing taste right. They claim to know God, just as flavorless salt claims to be salt, but their actions, their flavor, deny Him.
Paul says that these flavorless people are then detestable, disobedient, and unfit for doing and good. Go back to Matthew and answer what happens to unfit salt? It gets thrown out and trampled on. Now wait, that reminds me of another verse. How about the message to the church in Laodicea? Because they were lukewarm they were spit out (Rev 3:16). Flavorless salt, followers whose hearts are far from God, and lukewarm Christians are all of no value and get tossed or spewed out. That begs the question, is this a picture of me? In my desire to reflect God in my life, I feel that I also have to question if I am salty enough. I do not want to be that salt that has lost its flavor and is now only good enough to be thrown out. And I do not want to see you in that position as well. So the challenge I offer both you and myself is to take a taste test. I do not mean that you need to lick your skin and see if it is salty, but I do mean that we need to look deep at ourselves. Are we God-flavor enhanced salt, or are we flavorless?