Today’s background photo is Rock Salt … perched on a pile of rocks.
Throughout ancient times, if someone wanted to ruin their enemy, one of the most effective ways of ruining someone else was to destroy their land by scattering salt or rocks across it. In an agrarian culture, salt scattered across farmland would have been absolutely devastating!
The Bible offers a couple of examples of this very practice:
* “… then he destroyed the city and scattered salt over it.” -Judges 9:45b
* “They destroyed the towns, and each man threw a stone on every good field until it was covered. They stopped up all the springs and cut down every good tree.” -2 Kings 3:25
Things aren’t all that much different today.
Just about everywhere we turn, people are using their words to “scatter salt” and “throw stones” in order to ruin others.
* Proverbs 18:21 states: “The tongue has the power of life and death.”
* James 3:6, 8b states: “The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. … It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”
Jesus has said that those who follow Him are “salt” in this world. If you claim to be a Christian, make sure your “salt” is being used for good, not for destruction. Do not recklessly, or maliciously “scattered salt on someone’s field” … or “cast stones.” Instead, use your words (“salt”) to bring life.
“Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” -James 1:19-20
