In the Tree of Life Version of the Bible (TLV), Colossians 4:6 says, “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, to know how you ought to answer everyone.”
In prayer this morning the Lord led me to contrast words seasoned with salt, and words seasoned with other things. Seasoning with a sprinkling of sodium chloride makes food palatable and helps to prepare it for consumption, but it does not contaminate or make the food harmful. Some other ‘seasonings’ can do that – making the food distasteful or harmful, for example excessively hot pepper, or MSG, or too much sugar. On the contrary, a generous application of salt can actually protect raw food from spoilage until we are ready to desalinate and cook it. THEN, having been preserved from corruption by the salt, the food is palatable and can be safely consumed.
The apostle Paul, teaching as led by the Holy Spirit, applied the same principle to the words we may use in trying to share God’s truth with others for their benefit. He said our words should be seasoned with ‘salt’. God’s truth can appear unpalatable to people who are not accustomed to it, so in sharing it we are encouraged to season it with this safe, approved, truth-preserving seasoning. What is this spiritual salt? The first part of the verse gives one clue: “Let your speech always be with grace.”
The Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) reduces the whole concept to conversation that is ‘gracious and interesting’. The ‘interesting’ wording may seem trite, but it brings us to the objective expressed in the second half of the verse: “that you may know how you ought to answer each one” (New King James Version) or “so that you will know how to respond to any particular individual” (CJB). This grace with which our words are to be shared should show sensitivity to the particular needs of our audience, to the keys that might open their ears and hearts to the gospel, and our responsiveness to these factors as motivated by agape – “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15).
However, the salt with which the words are to be seasoned is reminiscent of our everlasting, over-arching, unchangeable covenant with God, so our words should absolutely faithfully represent Him and His Word. Leviticus 2:13, Matthew 5:13, Mark 9:49-50, and Luke 14:34 all mention either the significance of salt in our relationship with God or in our representation of Him to others. Numbers 18:19 speaks of there being “an everlasting covenant of salt” between God and the Levites. 2 Chronicles 13:5 speaks of there being a “covenant of salt” between God and the house of David forever.
I have gotten all of the above “meat” out of meditating on and doing research around the word that God shared with me this morning; but going back to the bare bones of that word, here was the backbone of it:
We are not allowed to season our sharing of God’s truth with anything that contaminates or denatures the ‘salt’. We are not to season it with fear or threats, or hypocrisy, or ‘white lies’, or half-truths, or attempts at manipulation, or self-aggrandisement. Any such additive will contaminate the ‘salt’, currupt the message, and facilitate spiritual decay rather than preservation.
Let’s think carefully about that. God will forgive us if we confess having done such ‘seasoning’ in the past, but He will expect us to stop using those disapproved seasonings in the future.
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