Salt of the World

https://odb.org/MY/2022/03/15/no-formula-needed

The explanation given in today’s ODB on the use of salt to preserve meat during Jesus’s day is insightful for us to better understand the concept of being us being the salt of the world. In those days, the refrigerator was not yet invented as it was a time prior to the discovery of electricity. Thus to preserve food, particularly meat, salt was used somewhat similar in concept to salted fish or dried meat that we have today. Thus, salt acted as a preservative or a shield, an obstacle to prevent the meat from getting bad. However, when we think of salt today, we immediately think of processed salt that we see today, which is pure. But in those days, prior to the industrial age, salt was not pure. They came from salt marches and are contaminated with impurities.

Thus the use of salt by Jesus to illustrate our role vis-a-vis the world is brilliant and outstanding! We must become like salt to be the obstacle to the inevitable corruption in the world. We will be the ones to preserve the purity of society. But for salt to work well it must get rid of its impurities. That is why Jesus said, what’s the point of salt if it loses its saltiness? It will not be able to perform its function to preserve food anymore. That is why for us to be the salt of the world, we need to be pure before God.

Of course, there is the other aspect of salt and that is to give taste to food and thus we as Christians to give taste to life in the sense that we give the world a taste of heaven through our lives. As salt gives food taste, we give the world a taste of the supernatural realm through signs and wonders, healings and miracles working through us by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are seated in the heavenly realm with Christ!

Therefore is there a formula in sharing the Gospel? Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that there are fundamentals that we need to explain and cover, for example, concepts like salvation is by grace and not works, all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God, Jesus died for our sins so that we may be reconciled to God, we need to repent from our sins and accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. But no in the sense there is no fixed script on how to share the Gospel. In the end, to share the Gospel is really being the salt to the world as lived out by us for all to see. That will always be the main attraction, the glory of God in our lives. Once those we are reaching out to gets attracted by the idea of having God in their lives themselves, we can then guide them through the fundamentals of the faith and what it means to be a child of God in the Kingdom of God.

Have a good day ahead everyone! I tested positive for Covid-19 last Thursday (10/3) and have had a couple of rough days after that but praise the Lord that I’m getting much better now through the help my dear wife who cared for me for my daily food (I’m stuck in my room on quarantine and putting on weight!) and someone close to us who took so much trouble to send us Chinese medicine, wild honey and vitamins! Praise the Lord for His goodness and mercy indeed for all these loving people in our lives!