Salt of the Earth - Are you worth your salt or are you passing the buck?

Mathew 5:13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

Are you worth your salt or are you passing the buck?

Have you ever “passed the buck?”

The most obvious and true response is “yes!” What an interesting, old and odd expression to describe the passing of blame to someone. It appears to have come from card games where passing the buck was actually passing the buckshot. A token was used in a game to show who was next to deal - a bit of buckshot. In order to designate who had responsibility for dealing next, you would literally pass the buckshot. This was later shortened to buck. Over time it became a grand phrase to mean to pass the buck each time that you pass responsibility onto someone or something else.

Could you say that you are “Worth your Salt?”

This is another interesting term full of meaning. Centuries ago salt was so priceless that many people used to have part of their pay in salt. It's mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible (Ezra 6:9) in the context of pay to the Persian king's servants. According to the Roman writer Pliny the Elder, Roman soldiers were to be paid in salt. It's where the word 'salary' comes from (the Latin word 'salarium').

Jesus challenges His disciples with this term of their value. He says, “You all are the salt of the earth. We are that which gives value to the earth! Too many Christians have passed the buck and lost our saltiness.

The theme of this great sermon was how people of the kingdom of heaven are to live on earth. Jesus was saying, “My disciples are to positively affect the world as the salt is to preservation. Our influence is to be positive (salty) and not negative or neutral (like salt without saltiness)!

Christians Like Salt Are Of Unlimited Value.

Consider the many uses of salt today! Salt is used in bigger quantities and for more applications than any other mineral. (More than 14,000 known uses). However, most of us today just look at that little bottle with holes at the top and how we like to sift it on our food to make it more pleasant to the taste. It is inexpensive and available almost as a luxury.

Now, consider the Bible days and the use and value of salt! When you are completely reliant on salt to preserve your food, and when it is so valuable that it is used in the place of money, you get a completely different perspective on salt.

Unlimited Values of Salt:

• Salt is a preserver!
• Salt is a taste enhancer and a needed mineral.

Job 6:6 Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt?

• Salt is used as a symbol of wisdom and knowledge.

Colossians 4:5-6 Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. (6) Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.

• Salt in connection with employment and payment (salary).

Ezra 4:14 Now because we eat the salt of the palace and it is not fitting for us to witness the king's dishonor, therefore we send and inform the king (RSV)( This would seem to refer to salt given as a payment to employees.)

• Salt was used in sacrifices.

Leviticus 2:13 And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.

• Salt and peace.

Mark 9:50 "Salt is good, but if the salt loses its flavor, how will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another."

Unlimited Value of salt as revealed in the ancient Latin

You might possibly want to word study salt in old Latin. The Bible was not written in Latin, but the old Latin does reveal the value the ancients placed on salt! Words prefixed with sal- were connected to salt (sal), wit (sal), the sea (sal), health and soundness (salus, salvus) and additionally, greeting others (saluto, salutatio) (wishing ‘salt’ to the other) and by expansion (the giving of saltiness to others!) as even in deliverance (salvatio), deliverer, Saviour or preserver (salvator), preserving (saluto), and so on.

“You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink!” is an old saying. However, if you salt his tongue first….

When a Christian joyfully adorns herself with the Godly attributes, she makes others thirsty for what she possesses. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a Godly life is worth a thousand sermons!

A Christian can lose his saltiness!

Chemically speaking Sodium Chloride is a stable compound, but Jesus was speaking what the disciples knew well. The Savor of salt could be lost.

In the part of the world where Jesus lived, salt was harvested from around the Dead Sea. Here the crystals were often tainted with other minerals. These formations were full of impurities. The actual salt was more soluble than the impurities. The rain might wash out the salt, which made what was left of little value since it lost its saltiness. When this happened, the salt was thrown out and trampled on.

When we “pass the buck” of being what a Christian is supposed to be, we lose our saltiness. That which is of unlimited value now becomes a waste!