Salty Speech

Colossians 4:5-6 (NKJV)
5 Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. 6 Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.

Our words are extremely powerful. They can build up others or destroy others. Solomon says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue”, (Proverbs 18:21a). We need to be careful with the words that we use. We are an example of Christ to a dying world that so desperately needs Him.

Paul begins these verses by telling us that it is imperative that we use wisdom when dealing with people in the world. We need to use the wisdom of God, the principles of scripture and a mind focused on heaven when we deal with others. The good of the other person should be our primary goal. Most people have not partaken of God’s great gift of salvation and we need to tell them about this awesome gift that we have in Christ. Paul also says that we need to redeem the time. We need to get to work. We need to buy back every opportunity that we have missed. We need share Christ to a sin stained world the greatest gift known to man – Christ Jesus.

In verse 6, Paul gives us the principles that we need to follow in order to share the truth with others. He tells us to have our speech always be shown with grace. Grace is an undeserved gift that is given despite how the person has acted or what they have done. Isn’t that what salvation is – an underserved gift in spite of our sin. In our speech we need to show this kind of grace by kindness, love and gentleness. We need to show the difference that Christ has made in our life.

Our speech needs to be seasoned with salt. Salt is a seasoning which, when used sparingly, accents the flavor of food tremendously. Salt also creates a thirst in our mouth so that we desire more of what we eat. Our words need to be used in wisdom and love so as to accent the greatness of Christ. This will put a desire in the minds and hearts of others so that they will want to learn more about Him. We cannot do this any other way but by being abandoned of ourselves and filled with Christ. It is only when we have this Mindset that we can provide this gift of grace in our speech. It is then that we can know how to answer other people, because we are then focused on Christ, the need of the other person and not ourselves.

We also need to realize that we are told to use salt and not sugar. Sugar is a substance most people desire, but too much sugar makes one sick. Whereas salt accents the natural flavor of the food and enhances the needed tastes of the food. In the spiritual realm, the gospel is not always well accepted by some and offensive to many. We need to give people the message that they need to hear and not what they want to hear. This means we may need to speak things that are unpopular but extremely needed. We need to be the salt of the earth are not to sugar coat the gospel, giving people only what they want to hear.

Thoughts, comments, objections, prayer request.

Daniel A. Smith