Biblical salt and light meaning
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June 16, 2021
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July 1, 2021
Biblical salt and light meaning
Luke’s gospel explains what the meaning of salt actually refers to.
What does ‘salt of the earth’ really mean?
Modern thinking generally goes towards the idea of culinary, but this is not the case in the Bible. Salt was used for the field and the dunghill. Salt was scraped up from the shores of the Dead Sea and used as a fertiliser for the soil.
Matthew’s Gospel referred to the soil as the earth. Salt of the earth is referring to fertiliser to make things grow.
The dunghill was an ancient toilet, where a box of salt was used and sprinkled on bodily waste to help stop the spread of disease. This was a very simple disinfectant in biblical times.
So salt has a positive and negative influence on the scripture. Salt did promote good things you wanted to grow, and it inhibits bad things you don’t want to grow. Disciples, therefore, are to be the salt of the soil that grows in the sewage and the like’s of flowers and other good things. We are the people who have a choice to stop bad things from growing and spreading. As salt, we are to be totally different from the environment.
As a fertiliser or a disinfectant, we need a considerable amount before the effect shows. Salt is of no use in the box or the salt cellar, it has to be in direct contact with the dirt so it operates by presence.
As disciples, we can be salt of the earth in the grubbiest of places but over time disinfect the environment or a person’s sin. There is also the aspect of the quality of salt. There are lots of varieties of salt today, but the best is more expensive to purchase. So there are poor varieties that can’t fertilise properly or disinfect purposefully. Jesus spoke about salt losing its savour or being adulterated with other substances.
A clever biblical salt dealer would scrape up sand with the salt to mix its quality. As disciples, we don’t want our saltiness to lose its quality or effectiveness with other worthless substances of life. Disciples will only influence the world if we are set apart from it. We must remember there is salt that is losing its saltiness.
Too many human secular views are influencing disciples to conform and many are doing just that. Losing one savour will just produce contempt from others. Trying to be credible to the modern generation is not the case, disciples are called to be different. This is not the way to save society it’s following it. Jesus said:
Matthew 12:13
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.”
Once a disciple loses his individual reputation, he can’t get it back again. Jesus explained there is salt that is useful with great yielding, and there is salt that is useless and thrown away. We as Christ’s disciples, need to be salt that is fruitful, that is effective and makes an impact and impression around us. We are to be the salt of the earth, to make others thirst after the kingdom of heaven, so they are craving more of the things of God.
To be poor in the spirit means to be despised by the world, yet the world requires someone to be strong, independent, self-confident, people who are proud in the spirit.
To be pure in heart not only means to be clean in desires, but it also means to be unmixed in motives. Simple, peacemakers, pure, meek motives are mirroring Christ. Jesus was a realist and knew exactly that this way was the surest way to be persecuted. Jesus said:
Romans 12:14
“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.”
Being salty in the modern world will be tough. It won’t pay in this world but it will pay handsomely in the next. This requires faith and the notion that you believe your reward is going to be big in the next world. Light also has its negative and positive aspects. Its negative aspect to modern man is to expose bad ways, hence you become unpopular. Jesus being light exhibited the right way, a better way, which was positive from the Kingdom above, but negative for many others from the realm below.
Jesus said “I am the light of the world’ and called His disciples to be the mirror. What’s interesting He never said He was the salt of the earth as He was God, we are individuals or groups considered as representatives of the best or noblest elements of society reflecting the kingdom. Light is not what we say or do, it’s what we are. The only action disciples have to do as light is put themselves on the lampstand. Disciples are not supposed to hide their light as it’s no use to anyone else. Disciples are the light of the world for a reason because there will come a time when His light will be withdrawn, hence we put ourselves on the lamp-stand. Disciples are to be seen as having a higher standard of living which may seem strange to others.
This is showcased in moral ways as not all material things are deemed bad. Good actions mean being good, humble, righteous holy, truthful and wise. Moral standards were raised higher in the New Testament not abolished on the sermon on the Mount. Disciples are to be seen to be different, which may make others think we are not natural. Church denominations today are lowering the standards to meet the people’s needs. This means the light can flicker and in some cases go out. Being a disciple and light will be terribly unpopular to many even family members. For a world without salt and light in a world of filth and darkness.
Disciples of Christ don’t belong here we are strangers, passing through. We are social misfits that mis-fit into material ways. The Bible teaches that the situation at the moment with believers it will get worse. Satan has never been able to destroy the church from the outside, so he tries from within. This is can be by corrupting our beliefs or by watering down doctrine to fit modern ideas hence lowering the standard.
Things that are ideal for some are not reality to biblical standards. The sermon on the mount was Jesus’s standard not an ideal or a concept to be changed later in time. The lifestyle of the kingdom whilst here on earth is not easy, but the rewards later will be paramount. We have to learn how to shine in all the pagan, evil, deranged falsehoods all around us. This was no different two thousand years ago while the church grew and spread. Persecution has always strengthened the church and made it stronger, but before the end comes we will be hated by all nations not some:
Matthew 10:22
“And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”
In the pandemic, it’s going to get tougher for salt and light. Many will be guided by a different spirit thinking it’s the Holy Spirit. The Bible teaches that the kingdom of God gets stronger, and the mirror satan’s kingdom the earth gets stronger too. Lies and deception will be so devious that Satan will trick many believers into unknowingly following him, or unknowingly worshipping the image of the beast, while others accept worshipping the image of the beast.
But the church will finish the job of salt and light, while the normalised disciples will fall away. Pressure purifies the church equipping it better to “get on with evangelism.” The mark of a child is disciplined by its parents, hence there is a mark of God and a mark of the beast.
Which parent do you belong to?
The Father in heaven or the father of lies?
Disciples should be worthy to suffer just like Christ did on the cross, but have glory to look forward to in the future.
