A familiar Bible saying, checked in context
Salt of the earth
Word for word
Jesus calls his listeners “the salt of the earth” in Matthew 5:13.
By @The..Mustard..Seed · Updated
Read the relevant KJV passage
Matthew 5:13Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
Compare the evidence
Mark uses the salt image while urging peace among disciples, a related setting with its own emphasis.
Mark 9:50Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.
Paul uses salt to describe gracious, seasoned speech. The image travels without making every use mean precisely the same thing.
Colossians 4:6Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
What the context adds
Matthew 5:13 directly calls Jesus’ listeners the salt of the earth. The line follows the Beatitudes and leads toward a warning about salt that has lost its savour. Mark 9:50 links salt with having peace with one another; Colossians 4:6 applies salt to speech. These comparisons make the short saying more than a compliment for someone judged decent or dependable. In Matthew it is addressed to a group of disciples and followed by another public image, light. A reader can ask what conduct makes that image visible in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount.
A question to carry forward
What does Jesus ask of the people called salt in the verses before and after Matthew 5:13?
Keep reading
Read Matthew 5:1–16 and connect the salt and light images to the preceding blessings.
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