“Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one” (Colossians 4:6).

Salt has many usages. When it comes to food, let’s consider two: (1) Salt can be used to preserve meat. Salt removes water that bacteria need to survive and grow. Meat preserved this way is said to be “cured.” “Curing is adding salt to meat to manage moisture and slow unwanted microbial activity” (What is Cured Meat and How it Works by Tom Meuller, eatcuredmeat.com). Between 2-3% salt per pound of meat is commonly recommended (How the Amish Preserve Meat Without Refrigeration, YouTube@EliasYoderAmish). (2) Salt can be used to improve the taste of food. “The biggest way salt ‘enhances’ flavor is by dialing down bitterness. When bitterness fades, other tastes that were always present, like sweetness and savoriness, become more noticeable. It’s less about salt adding flavor and more about salt removing a mask” (How Does Salt Enhance Flavor, Sweetness, and Aroma, scienceinsights.org). “Salt is used as a universal flavour improver because at low concentrations it will reduce bitterness, but increase sweet, sour, and umami, which is desirable for sweet recipes. But at higher concentrations it suppresses sweetness and enhances umami which is good for savoury things.” (Why Does Salt Enhance Flavour? by Luis Villazon, sciencefocus.com, BBC Science Focus).

Let’s apply these thoughts to Colossians 4:6. (1) Our words should be used to preserve and save. “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers” (Ephesians 4:29). (2) We should try to make our words palatable and not unnecessarily unpleasant or harsh. This, no doubt, is the point of our text. There may be a time for bold speech. Jesus so spoke to the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23). However, this was not how He normally addressed people [Consider: (1) Nicodemus (John 3); (2) the woman at the well (John 4); (3) the man healed at the pool of Bethesda (John 5); (4) the woman caught in adultery (John 8); (5) the man born blind (John 9)].