Do we still taste salt?
In Matthew 5, Jesus says to His followers, “You are the salt of the earth!”
When Jesus says to His followers that they are salt, He is referring to the properties of salt. Salt has several properties: it is perishable, it tastes good and salt dissolves easily in water. So Jesus indicates here that Christians are spoilsports and taste-giving.
Reflect these qualities on yourself: Am I a spoilsport? When I go somewhere, is sin curbed? For example, if you are at a party where there is a lot of drinking and possibly swearing, your presence might curb others: ‘Let’s not do it now because he is there …’.
How is my contribution to conversations? Am I tasteful? Do I speak well of God? Do I let others hear how good it is to serve God? Do I taste like more, so to speak?
Salt also dissolves easily. This is true in two ways: you become part of the grey mass or you influence the mass with your presence. When salt dissolves in water, you can taste it. Potatoes that are not cooked in salt water are bland. The salt gives the whole thing spirit. Do I add spice to society? Or am I fish and flesh? Do I blend in with the crowd?
David Wafula from Kenya recently compared the Church of Kenya to salt. A Cristal of salt to be precise. He indicated how the population of Kenya is growing explosively. His expectation is that the total population will be ninety million in thirty years’ time. Without training pastors and church leaders, the Church of Kenya will be no more than a Cristal of salt in a big bucket of water’.
One swallow does not make a summer. One Cristal of salt does not make enough spice. The more Cristals of salt, the more pith. When the population of Kenya grows exponentially, the number of church leaders should also grow exponentially with an even greater growth factor. Only then will the church be able to continue to taste and spoil by dissolving in the big bucket of water.
Am I a Cristal of salt, or do they take me with a grain of salt?
Will you help equip pastors so that they can do their salty work?