Let’s talk about salt.
Salt has been used in many cultures as money. The word salary comes from “salt-money,” a Roman soldier’s allowance for the purchase of salt. People who earn their pay are “worth their salt.”
In the times in which the Bible was written (and in that part of the world), businessmen would mingle the salt from their salt purses as a way of showing that agreements could not be undone anymore than they could take back their own salt from the other. Then they would eat salt together in front of witnesses to seal the deal.
Salt is mentioned in reference to covenants in several ancient Near Eastern sources, likely because “its preservative qualities made it the ideal symbol of the durability of a covenant.”[1]
We see in the Old Testament several examples of what’s called the Covenant of Salt:[2]
The Old Testament Law commands the use of salt in grain offerings for the “salt of the covenant” (Leviticus 2:13). “You shall season your every offering of meal with salt; you shall not omit from your meal offering the salt of your covenant with God; with all your offerings you must offer salt.” (Lev. 2:13)
God promised to provide for the priests them through the sacrifices the people made: “Whatever is set aside from the holy offerings the Israelites present to the Lord I give to you and your sons and daughters as your perpetual share. It is an everlasting covenant of salt before the Lord for both you and your offspring.” (Numbers 18:19)
King Abijah’s speech in 2 Chronicles 13:5 mentions it: “Don’t you know that the LORD, the God of Israel, has given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt?”[3] According to the New Oxford Annotated Bible, "of salt" most likely means that the covenant is "a perpetual covenant, because of the use of salt as a preservative."
But the salt used back then had impurities in ways the salt we use now does not. When exposed to the elements, it would eventually lose its saltiness. It was not uncommon for it to be used like gravel on the roads, or for the priests to spread it on temple steps so people wouldn’t slip. [4]
This brings us to the next thing Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount. Remember, he has just finished the Beatitudes. He has described what people are like when they live in the Kingdom of God as dedicated disciples.
“You are the salt of the earth. Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again or its flavor be restored?[5] It is no longer good for anything. It is of no value for the soil or for the manure pile; it is to be thrown out and be trampled on by people.”
Jesus compares a disciple who lives out the values of the Kingdom to salt that effectively does what salt is meant to do: preserve and protect. On the other hand, disciples who do not live out the values of the kingdom are like salt that cannot fulfill its purpose.
Jesus, in the next breath, gives another analogy that I think is supposed to make the same point. He calls Christians the light of the world.[6]
“You are the light of the world.[7] A city located on a hill[8] cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then covers it with a basket or jar or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a lampstand so that those who come in can see the light. In the same way, let your light shine before people, so that they can see your good deeds and give honor to your Father in heaven.”
Just like salt, light is created for a purpose. Disciples who represent the values of the Kingdom shine in the darkness as God intends; those who do no represent the values of the Kingdom do not fulfill their purpose as God intends.[9]
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“The question "How can salt be made salty again?" is a rhetorical question. It can’t. Just based on the context, I don't think Jesus was trying to make a point here about whether or not people could lose their salvation. He’s talking about being who God intends us to be.
“If Jesus' disciples are to act as a preservative in the world by conforming to kingdom norms, they can discharge this function only by retaining their own virtue.” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary)
We see the virtue/integrity expressed in the light analogy: the light we shine is the works we dothat flow from our saltiness, which in turn glorify the God who makes that kind of holy life transformation possible.
It is not sufficient to have light - we must walk in the light, and by the light. Our whole conduct should be a perpetual comment on the doctrine we have received, and a constant exemplification of its power and truth. (Adam Clarke)[10]
In other words, Kingdom values expressed in the lives of kingdom people produce kingdomwitness.
I have been reading a book called The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire, by Alan Kreider.[11] In it, he stresses how the faithful, presence of the church in the first few centuries preached the gospel and made disciples. It’s a book about the importance of being salt and light, followed by practical examples of what it looked like when the church first started.
First, the importance of being salt and light. The early church leaders wrote extensively on behavior because of their Christian conviction that the way people live expresses what they really believe.
Justin Martyr (100-165) notes that the effectiveness of Christian witness depends on the integrity of the believers’ lifestyles. In the business world, “Many have turned from the ways of violence and tyranny, overcome by observing the consistent lives of their [Christian] neighbors.”
Origen (185-253) stated that Christ “makes his defense in the lives of his genuine disciples, for their lives cry out the real facts.”
Cyprian (210-258) said that when Christians make their virtue visible and active, they demonstrate the character of God to the world.[12] “No occasion should be given to the pagans to censure us deservedly and justly… It profits nothing to show forth virtue in words and destroy truth in deeds.”
So, the overwhelming agreement was that Christian saltiness had to do with consistent virtue and the display of Christ-like character. This would not only be seen obviously in ones lifestyle; it would be profoundly compelling, more so than just the words that explain the Christian faith and its transformative power.
However, when this words/deeds consistency wasn’t present, the salt would lose its saltiness, and the light would dim.
A writing attributed to Clement (95-140) noted that when Christians talked about loving their enemies, their neighbors had been interested. When they found that the Christians didn’t do what they said, they dismissed Christianity as “a myth and a delusion.”
In the 240s, Origen wrote of Christians who were “completely disgusting in their actions and habit of life, wrapped up with vices and not wholly ‘putting away the old self with its actions.”
“By the early fifth century the problem had become so acute that some theologians updated the church’s theology of witness so that they no longer emphasized the Christians’ exemplary behavior.” (Alan Kreider)
That’s…sobering. Rather than addressing the importance of a redeemed lifestyle as a crucial part of the Christian witness, they just stopped talking about it. It was easier to develop an intellectual theology to think about rather than an incarnational theology to embody. It’s a lot easier to think about a cross than to take it up.
And yet many Christians did, in fact, commit themselves to this. And from the record that survives, the church in the first few centuries put a lot of thought into what it looked like to be effectively salty and shiny.
What did this look like practically? How did the early church assume the first Christians would live their beliefs in a way consistent with the teaching of Jesus such that their very lives pointed toward Jesus?
I have been a bit haunted by this, so I want to pull you into this with me J I have quite a few examples. My sense is that, even though the early church wasn’t perfect and didn’t get everything right, there is a foundational application here from which we could learn much.
Polycarp (69-155) thought that it was the Christian behavior as martyrs, not the words they might speak, that would convey the Christian faith to the watching world.
Epistle to Diognetus (130): “Do you not see how they are thrown to wild animals to make them deny the Lord, and how they are not vanquished? Do you not see that the more of them are punished, the more do others increase?”
Justin Martyr (100-165): "We formerly rejoiced in uncleanness of life, but now love only chastity; before we used the magic arts, but now dedicate ourselves to the true and unbegotten God; before we loved money and possessions more than anything, but now we share what we have and to everyone who is in need; before we hated one another and killed one another and would not eat with those of another race, but now since the manifestation of Christ, we have come to a common life and pray for our enemies and try to win over those who hate us without just cause."
Justin Martyr (100-165): “We who were filled with war, and mutual slaughter, and every wickedness, have each through the whole earth changed our warlike weapons…and we cultivate piety, righteousness, philanthropy, faith, and hope, which we have from the Father Himself through Him who was crucified.”[13]
Justin Martyr’s Apology noted that Christians share economically and care for the poor and the sick, widows and orphans; they engage in business with truthfulness and without usury; they are a community of contentment and sexual restraint; and they behave with love toward people of different tribes and customs.
1 Clement (130-140) gives a description of Corinth. “You were all lowly in mind, free from vainglory, yielding rather than claiming submission from others, more ready to give than to take. “
1 Clement (130-140) “Day and night you agonized for all the brotherhood, that by means of compassion and care the number of God’s elect might be saved. You were sincere, guileless, and void of malice among yourselves…You lamented the transgressions of your neighbors and judged their shortcomings to be your own. You never rued an act of kindness, but were ready for every good work.” [14]
Athenagoras (170): “For we have been taught not to strike back at someone who beats us nor to go to court with those who rob and plunder us. Not only that: we have even been taught to turn our head and offer the other side when men ill use us and strike us on the jaw and to give also our cloak should they snatch our tunic.”
Tertullian (204): “If one tries to provoke you to a fight, there is at hand the admonition of the Lord: ‘If someone strike you . . . on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.’ And if someone burst out in cursing or wrangling, recall the saying: ‘When men reproach you, rejoice… Let wrong-doing grow weary from your patience.”
“The practical application of charity was probably the most potent single cause of Christian success.” (Henry Chadwick, quoted in the book). By the year 250, the church was feeding more than 1500 of the hungry and destitute in Rome every day.[15]
Historian Rodney Stark points out that women were attracted to the churches because of the greater fidelity of Christian husbands and the church’s rejection of killing (abortion and infanticide).
The Didache (1st and 2nd century): “Do not hesitate to give and do not give with a bad grace. . . . Do not turn your back on the needy, but share everything with your brother and call nothing your own. For if you have what is eternal in common, how much more should you have what is transient!”
Lactantius (250-325): “We . . . make no demand that our God be worshipped by anyone unwillingly, and we do not get cross if he is not worshipped. We are confident of his supreme power.”[16]
Lactantius (250-325): “There is no need for violence and brutality; worship cannot be forced; it is something to be achieved by talk rather than blows, so that there is free will in it… we teach, we show, we demonstrate… Religion must be defended not by killing but by dying, not by violence but by patience.”
The emperor Julian The Apostate (300s) complained that Christianity, “has been specially advanced through the loving service rendered to strangers… It is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar and that the [Christians] care not only for their own poor but for ours as well."
If there is a challenge here, it’s wrestling with the question of whether or not what characterized the early church characterizes the modern church. Our culture is different, so there will be, at times, different expressions of similar principle. But there will also be plenty of times when there are similar expressions of similar principles. I wonder, if members of the early church were to visit, how they would think we are doing in our theology of witness? Would we be found salty?
If I have an encouragement, it’s this: being a faithful presence matters, even in the most ordinary of moments. The church exploded during this time period not because there were rock star preachers or singers, not because there were events in stadiums or social media campaigns, not because they had advocates in the Roman halls of power. It exploded because ordinary people who said they loved God and others lived like they loved God and others. With the help of the Holy Spirit, this is within the grasp of all of us.
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[1] Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 191, Jewish Theological Seminary
[2] Thanks to gotquestions.org for providing a handy list of these passages all in one place J
[3] The Metzudat David commentary of David Altschuler explains the phrase “covenant of salt”:“The establishment of the enduring covenant [with David’s house] is like salt, in that it endures and does not rot.” (Jewish Theological Seminary)
[4] I’m not sure where I found this anecdote, but here it is: “When asked what to do with unsalty salt, a rabbi once advised, “Salt it with the afterbirth of a mule.” Mules are sterile and thus lack afterbirth; his point was that the question was stupid. If salt lost its saltiness, what would it be useful for?”
[5] “Strictly speaking salt cannot lose its saltiness; sodium chloride is a stable compound. But most salt in the ancient world derived from salt marshes rather than by evaporation of salt water, and thus contained many impurities. The actual salt, being more soluble than the impurities, could be leached out, leaving a residue so dilute it was of little worth.” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary)
[6] He also spoke of Himself as “the light of the world,” (John 8:12; 12:35, 36, 46) so think of Jesus as the source of light and followers of Jesus as reflections of that light.
[7] Per Adam Clarke, light of the world, נר עולם ner olam was a title applied to the most eminent rabbis. Jesus gives it to his followers. You don’t have be a highly trained theologian of Christianity to be salt and light. Being a true disciple is sufficient J
[8] “‘A few points toward the north (of Tabor) appears that which they call the Mount of Beatitudes, a small rising, from which our blessed Saviour delivered his sermon in the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of Matthew. (Matthew 5:5.) Not far from this little hill is the city Saphet, supposed to be the ancient Bethulia. It stands upon a very eminent and conspicuous mountain, and is SEEN FAR and NEAR. May we not suppose that Christ alludes to this city, in these words.’” (Adam Clarke)
[9] “If salt (v.13) exercises the negative function of delaying decay and warns disciples of the danger of compromise and conformity to the world, then light (vv.14-16) speaks positively of illuminating a sin-darkened world.” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary)
[10] “The emphasis is on the ministry of Christian character. The winsomeness of lives in which Christ is seen speaks louder than the persuasion of words.” (Believer’s Bible Commentary)
[11] The information that follows is mostly from his book. There are few direct quotes, but many indirect quotes.
[12] Lactantius (250–325) wrote, “People prefer example before talk, because talk is easy and example is hard. This is why God chose to send not disembodied words from heaven but an incarnate Son in a mortal body.”
[13] According to Origen, refusing to participate in “the taking of human life in any form at all” was a basic Christian commitment; it was a product of the Christians’ patience, their refusal to retaliate, and their understanding of the way and teaching of Jesus. On this matter other writers—Tertullian, Athenagoras, Minucius Felix, and Lactantius—agreed with Origen.
[14] Quote found in The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, Adolf Harnack.
[16] Christian identity emerged as relationships developed. “Casual contact” was the most common means of communicating the attractiveness of the faith to others and enticing them to investigate things further because of the Christians’ character, bearing, and behavior. Around 200, Tertullian, in Carthage, was concerned that members of his house church would “worship too vociferously,” bothering the inhabitants of neighboring apartments in what was evidently a large apartment building. It was not Christian worship that attracted outsiders; it was Christians who attracted them. Outsiders found the Christians attractive because of their Christian lives, which catechesis and worship had formed. (The Patient Ferment of the Early Church)