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.

The child of God has a great responsibility to be a light in a world which is blinded by darkness. Paul starts by telling us that we need to walk in wisdom in this world. Walking has the idea of a continual pattern, a repetitive action which you have established in your life. We need to walk in wisdom. God’s wisdom is different than the “wisdom” of the world. God’s wisdom requires us to observe all things in the same way in which He would look at them. We then need to respond in such a way that would reflect the principles of scripture.

The people who are outside of the church need to see the love of God in God’s people. God’s people need to show His kindness and His unfailing forgiveness. God has chosen His children to be His examples of Jesus Christ to the rest of the world. The idea of “redeeming the time” has the idea of buying up every opportunity to be an example of Christ to others. Paul also wants to realize that there is urgency in letting others know that they are sinners and with a repentant heart, they can believe in Jesus in order to send them to heaven.

Paul also urges us to speak with grace. Grace is an undeserved, unearned gift, given purely out of love for the sake of the recipient’s best good. If our words are to reflect grace, we need to step back, think before we speak and then use the best words possible to help others. The only way that we can be able to do this is by the power of the Spirit of God. We need to start our day in God’s word and prayer, allowing God to prepare us, in love. We then can take on the challenges that will be ahead of us. We can then, by God’s Spirit, through God’s wisdom, respond to others in the ways in which God desires for us to reflect the light in a dark world.

It is interesting that Paul uses the idea of salt with our words. It only takes a small amount of salt to accent the flavor of food. Salt also causes the natural flavor of food to be tremendously enhanced. This accent makes us desire to eat more. Even so, we need to use our words sparingly and also use the greatest amount of care, love and grace within these words. If others find kindness, approval, encouragement and positivity in our words, they will then be drawn to the Savior, in whom all people need to believe and trust.

Once again, we need to constantly be aware of the fact that we must look at others from God’s perspective. Then we need to pick our words wisely in order to be shining example of Christ to a hurting, sin fallen world.

Thoughts, comments, objections.



Daniel A. Smith