I love Jesus' words to his disciples about being the salt of the earth. The idea usually swirls in my mind about our role to make the world thristy for Christ. But oh to be changed by these words that John Stott wrote about it too...
"The notion is not that the world is tasteless and that Christians can make it less insipid, ('The thought of making the world palatable to God is quite impossible.') but that it is putrefying. It cannot stop itself from going bad. Only salt introduced from outside can do this." (p 59) (He wrote earlier of "biltong" meat in South Africa, that if cured with salt properly would keep indefinetely.)
"Christian salt has no business to remain snugly in elegant little ecclesiastical salt cellars; our place is to be rubbed into the secular community, as salt is rubbed into meat, to stop it going bad. And when society does go bad, we Christians tend to throw up our hands in pious horror and reproach the non-Christian world; but should we not rather reproach ourselves? One can hardly blame unsalted meat for going bad. It cannot do anything else. The real question to ask is: Where is the salt?" (p 65)
From the exquisite commentary "The Message of the Sermon on the Mount: Christian Counter Culture."
Some good news: Here's some salt. A man who has saved 1,000 babies. I'm sure there's lots of salt out there, but for now, just this one beautiful link to a preserver of life.
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