Christ challenges us, asking, “Are you truly salty? Or has the world leached away the Word from your heart?” If we lack the marks of saving grace that Christ outlines in the Beatitudes, we have no “saltiness”, and are  “good for nothing.” Henry said, “A wicked man is the worst of creatures; a wicked Christian is the worst of men; and a wicked minister is the worst of Christians.”[9]

How can we be salt and light in our world, so that instead of being “trodden under foot” or “hidden under a bushel” (vv. 13, 15), we can resist evil and do good, and moving unbelievers to glorify God as our Father in heaven?  To answer that question, let’s listen to the wisdom of the English Puritans.

Matthew 5:13a says, “Ye are the salt of the earth.” Christ was praising and commending His disciples. Though the world may insult and persecute them, true Christians are a precious blessing to the world. Benjamin Keach (1640–1704) noted, “A little salt seasons much meat.”[1]Therefore, Christ gives us great encouragement here: though Christians be few, and the church small, compared to the wicked world, godly people are precious, needed, and influential in a degree far beyond their numbers. As Keach said, “The saints of God, and the faithful ministers of the gospel, are a great blessing to the world.”[2]

Notice the wide reach of our influence. As William Perkins (1558–1602) observed, Christ said that we are not just “salt” but “the salt of the earth,” implying that His disciples have a commission to make disciples not just in Israel but among all nations (Matt. 28:19).[3]Christ said likewise that we are “the light of the world” (Matt. 5:14, emphasis added). 

Notice also the calling we have to live in the world, though we are not of the world. Salt does no good until it is mixed with the food we eat.

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