Matthew 5:13-14
"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 by men. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden."
It is true as Christians we are the salt of the earth. What is salt for? Salt is used to flavour food. We are used to bring to life those that live in death.
But what happens when too much salt is added?
Salting the earth refers to the practice of spreading salt on fields to make them incapable of being used for crop-growing. This was done in ancient times at the end of some wars as an extremely punitive scorched earth tactic.
According to the Book of Judges (9:45) in the Old Testament, Abimelech, the judge of the Israelites, sowed his own capital, Shechem with salt, ca. 1050 BC, after quelling a revolt against him.
It is a fable that the Romans salted the fields of Carthage after the destructive war against Hannibal, so that Carthage would never again rise to challenge Roman power.
Too much salt renders food tasteless. So this means that if, as Christians, we throw ourselves at non-Christians, they lose their taste for us and for Christ. We must remember to use salt with reserve.
As Christians, we are the light of the world; we are the bearers of the light of Christ to a world fraught with darkness and despair.
But what happens when there is too much light?
As study was done about the effects of too much light on plants. What happens when a plant is subjected to light on a continuous basis? Well, many plants are stunted in their growth. Some plants even shrivel up and die.
What happens when a human receives too much light? SUNBURN!! Everyone knows that if you are out in the sun far too long, your skin will get burnt, which hurts quite a bit.
The same can happen with non-Christians who receive too much of our (Christians) light. They are stunted in their possible growth, or they immediately shrivel up and die (a spiritual death).
Matthew 13: 3-9
Then he told them many things in parables, saying: "A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. He who has ears, let him hear."
