“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 underfoot.

Matthew 5:13

I still remember using salt, lots of it, to preserve meat for my students in Tanzania 60 or so years ago.  That was before refrigerators were used much in that country.  Every few weeks I took a few students along and drove the 20 or so miles to shoot a variety of animals.  Always great fun.  They skinned and butchered the game, then cut the meat into long thin strips, covered them with salt and draped the strips over a fire where they, after several hours, dried.  Then the meat would keep for several weeks.  The students loved it.

I found that two things were needed to preserve fresh meat – salt and prolonged heat.  I was amazed how simple was the process.

Salt was the secret.  We used coarse local salt that was found here and there, waiting to be dug up.  Salt did something to the meat, including giving it a very delicious flavor.  I suppose salt was used similarly at the time of Christ.  I never heard of salt losing its essential qualities, the basic of which was the power to preserve.  Jesus may have come across crystals that got bleached of saltiness so they could preserve nothing and were essentially tasteless.  The tasteless crystals had no use.

Jesus warned his listeners about being salty once but no longer.  I understand that we who have been born again of the Spirit of Christ are obviously salty!  Then, some fall back into the world – lose their saltiness.  That is a bad place.  May I have my saltiness renewed every day!  That is why I am alive!  I am God’s salt, doing its work. What good am I to God and my fellows if I am no longer salty with the transforming salt of God?