REVIEW
FLIP CHART: SOM’S KEY VERSE, GOAL, MOTTO
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness ….” (Mt. 6:33a).
The law sends us to Christ for justification; Christ sends us back to the law for sanctification.
FLIP CHART: Show new “Perfect Righteousness” chart explaining steps to coming to Christ (As a worm, mourning, meek, spiritual hunger/thirst with the result of legal righteousness). Explain moral righteousness, immediate moral change at conversion, gradual change through life’s challenges and speeding up moral change via CCRC (Concentration, Choice, Reflection and Confession/Thanksgiving).
FLIP CHART: Go over John Stott’s outline of SOM.
INTRODUCTION:
OUTLINE FOR TODAY:
1. Christian Influence in the World
2. Salt in the Biblical World
3. Meaning of Salt in Our Text
4. Salt/Earth – Christian/World
5. The Struggle to Retain Our Saltiness
6. Fortifying/Diluting Christian Saltiness
“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.
“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven (Mt. 5:13-16).
PRESERVING OUR SALTINESS
I. CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE IN THE WORLD
BURRITT, ELIHU [Burritt, Elihu] 1810-79, American reformer, b. New Britain, Conn. A blacksmith, he studied mathematics, languages, and geography and became known as the learned blacksmith.” Profoundly idealistic, he supported many reform causes—antislavery, temperance, and self-education—and he pleaded for them when he edited (1844-51) the weekly Christian Citizen at Worcester, Mass. Most of all, however, he worked to promote world peace, organizing world peace congresses. Burritt argued for cheaper international postal rates and greater intellectual exchange among nations. Among his much-read books were Sparks from the Anvil (1846) and Ten Minute Talks (1873).
TABLE ACTIVITY: Have every table discuss the Elihu Burritt quote. Then underline just one sentence or phrase that best summarizes the quote. Then have one person from the table come forward and underline the chosen sentence on the transparency.
“No human being can come into this world without increasing or diminishing the sum total of human happiness, not only of the present but of every subsequent age of humanity. No one can detach himself from this connection. There is no sequestered spot in the universe, no dark niche along the disc of nonexistence to which he can retreat from his relations with others, where he can withdraw the influence of his existence upon the moral destiny of the world. Everywhere his presence or absence will be felt. Everywhere he will have companions who will be better or worse because of him. It is an old saying, and one of the fearful and fathomless statements of import, that we are forming characters for eternity. Forming characters? Whose? Our own or others? Both. And in that momentous fact lies the peril and responsibility of our existence. Who is sufficient for the thought? Thousands of my fellow beings will yearly enter eternity with characters differing from those they would have carried thither had I never lived. The sunlight of that world will reveal my finger marks in their primary formations and in their successive strata of thought and life.”
No Man is An Island:
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind…
Perchance he for whom this bell tolls, may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me…may have caused it to toll for me…and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee” (John Donne, 1573-1631).
The individual Christian, in being Christian influences society. The real question, is to what extent do I influence society?
II. SALT IN THE BIBLICAL WORLD
“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.
The Romans had a little jingle that said, “Nil utillus sole et sale” which means “There is nothing more useful than sun and salt.”
Every home, no matter how poor, used salt and light.
Roman soldiers were sometimes paid in salt …. Thus the word “salary”which come from the Latin word for “salt” which is “sale.”
On the African Gold Coast salt was such a valued commodity that the natives would mine gold and then trade it for salt with Arab traders.
“In the ancient world the number-one function of salt was its use as a preservative. There were no ice-making machines in those days. Refrigeration was beyond man’s wildest dreams. The only way to preserve meat then was to salt it down or soak it in a saline solution. In fact, this was a common practice right into the twentieth century in remote areas.” (Hughes, 78)
Usually meat was cut into strips, dried in the sun when possible, put in kegs layered with salt. My dad would smoke hams and then rub salt into them, and in fact shoot salt into them and then hang them in the woodshed in the winter and go out and cut off a slice of ham for breakfast.
Salt preserves by drawing out the moisture from the meat and making an environment that is inhospitable for bacteria.
ILL: The following passage from John Steinbeck’s “ The Grapes of Wrath” describes the process briefly: Noah carried the slabs of meat into the kitchen and cut it into small salting blocks, and Ma patted the course salt in, laid it piece by piece in the kegs, careful that no two pieces touched each other. She laid the slabs like bricks, and pounded salt in the spaces.
OBJECT LESSON: How salt loses its saltiness. Have on each table a plate that has a mixture of salt and baking powder. Ask everyone to take a taste and then ask them what caused this salt to lose its saltiness.
Wikipedia: “Salt itself, sodium chloride, is extremely stable and cannot lose its flavor, so salt that has lost its flavor cannot every literally refer to actual salt. The most common explanation for this is that salt in the era was impure, not only due to extraction methods, but also due to unscrupulous merchants mixing it with other substances.”
Salt was farmed from saline marshes, evaporation of sea water, from the Dead Sea and was often contaminated or mixed with other minerals e.g. gypsum, road dust. Because of this salt was often flat and often repulsive.
This salt could not be used for fertilizer and thus Luke quotes Jesus as saying, “It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile” (Luke 14:35).
The only safe place to throw the useless salt was on the street where it would be trampled by people.
III. MEANING OF SALT IN OUR TEXT
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.
One thing all of the listeners knew about salt was that it was a very valuable and a very necessary commodity. As mentioned it was sometimes used to pay soldiers, it was common in every home and it was used as the chief means of preserving meat.
Salt and Light was a metaphor that was frequently used in classical times by Jews to describe the Mosaic law. It is interesting that here the salt and light metaphors are placed right after the Beatitudes and right prior to the section dealing with Jesus’ teaching on the use of the law.
Different ideas of the meaning of salt in this text:
Exodus, Ezekiel, and Kings present salt as a purifying agent.
Leviticus, Numbers, and Chronicles present it as a sign of God’s covenant.
The most important use of salt was as a preservative and hence the most common interpretation of the metaphor is as asserting the duty to preserve the purity of the world.
In the Rabbinic literature of the period salt was a metaphor for wisdom.
Salt was a minor but essential ingredient in fertilizer and so a few scholars such as Gundry believe that earth should be translated as soil (i.e. salt of the soil), and hence the metaphor asserts that the audience should help the world grow and prosper.
One interpretation of salt of the earth is that it orders the audience to take part in the world rather than withdraw from it
John MacArthur’s Notes on possible interpretations:
It could refer to the importance of Christians adding flavor to life; Salt is used as an antiseptic; The idea of purity is included due to the whiteness of pure salt; Also salt stings and the testimony of a Christian should sting people with the conviction of sin; It creates thirst; It means that the Christians play a role in preserving the world from corruption.
Since by far the most important use of salt in the ancient classical world was as a preservative that is what I believe the intention of this text is to show the unparalleled impact of the influence of the Christian community on preserving the moral tone of the world.
One thing is clear, the disciples were called the “Salt of the earth” and in someway they were going to effect the whole world.
IV. SALT & EARTH / THE CHRISTIAN AND THE WORLD
“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.
One thing is plain …. Salt and earth are two separate entities and thus the church is something completely separate from the world.
QUESTION: What is really outlandish about the statement “You ONLY are the salt of the earth?”
The emphasis on the pronoun would cause the statement to say, “You ONLY are the salt of the earth.”
The use of the word “salt” in juxtaposition to “earth” implies the rottenness of the earth / world. One of the main lessons / points from this text is that the world is rotten.
Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me (Psalm 51:5).
The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time (Gen. 6:5).
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9).
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless (Romans 1:21-31).
This is a rotten, vile world and the church / the Christian community needs to be rubbed into the rotting flesh of the world.
Salt does not preserve meat when it is set on a shelf. It needs to mix with and be rubbed into the meat. And Christians do not preserve the world when living in isolation from the world.
ILL: Doug talked to one of the Account Executives who is living with a young woman and told him specifically that what he was doing is wrong.
“Let the individual Christian be certain that this essential quality of saltiness is in him that because he is what he is, he is a check, a control, an antiseptic in society, preserving it from unspeakable foulness, preserving it, perhaps, from a return to a dark age.” (MLJ 158)
The presence of a Christian should hinder social decay and restrain evil in a society. Salt hinders decay in meat and Christian should hinder decay in the world.
TESTIMONY: Brian Analla and the marriage amendment!
V. THE STRUGGLE TO MAINTAIN OUR SALTINESS
“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.
If we have the 8 ingredients, listed in the 8 Beatitudes …. Poor in spirit, mourn, meekness, hunger and thirst for righteousness, merciful heart, purity, peacemaker and are persecuted because of them, we can class our selves and Class A Salt.
The saltiness here is just another word for Christlikness.
The consensus of the scholars on the phrase “salt loses its saltiness” is simply the adulteration or dilution of the Christian’s testimony (Hughes 81).
John Stott quotes AB Bruce as saying that Christians, “from being saviors of society to supplying materials for footpaths” (Stott, 60).
The real question of the verse is this, “Is our saltiness, our Christlikeness penetrating the world and changing it or is the world counter-penetrating us and adulter-ating our testimony?”
FLIPCHART: Write in large letters in the middle of the FlipChart the letters NaCL and then separating that with a line write P4M3HT. Put a circle around these two elements. Then write on the far left edge of the paper, “God/Word/Church.” On the extreme right edge of the paper write “World/Flesh/Devil.” Draw a line with an arrow from the left side to the circle and write above the line “Re-Fortify.” Draw a line with an arrow from the right edge of the paper to the circle and write above it “Dilute.”
EXPLAIN: There is an on-going conflict to maintain the saltiness of the salt. The world/flesh/devil wants to dilute our testimony and saltiness to make our impact on society meaningless; God, through His Word and through the church seeks continually to re-fortify the Christian so that he has an on-going preserving effect on society and by his presence continues to hinder social decay.
VI. FORTIFYING / DILUTING CHRISTIAN SALTINESS
“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.
SMALL GROUP ACTIVITY: Choose two evaluators. Give them each a transparency and have the 8 Beatitudes written on the left side and underlined on each transparency. Give them each a clipboard. Count the group out into four groups. Each group will go to a corner of the classroom. On the wall put one large sheet of Flipchart paper which will include just 4 of the Beatitudes. Groups A & B will seek to discover how to re-fortify the 8 Beatitudes in the life of the Christian so write as their headings on their paper “Re-Fortifying Christian Saltiness.” Groups C & D will seek to discover how to dilute the 8 beatitudes in the life of the Christian so write as the heading on their paper, “Diluting Christian Saltiness.”
The two evaluators will seek to list the best ideas on their transparencies.
When completed have each evaluator share their findings. Discuss answers and make comments.
SO WHAT!!!
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As a Christian you are having and will continue to have an influence on society.
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Christ firmly intended that each of us would have a preserving influence on society.
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We can only maintain our preserving impact on society by continually refortifying our saltiness and avoiding the diluting efforts of the world, the flesh and the devil..