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Are Salt and Light the Same?

Discussion in 'The Gospels & Acts' started by Quatchu, Mar 24, 2013.

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  1. Mar 24, 2013 #1
    Quatchu

    Quatchu Puritan Board Sophomore

    13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

    14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that[a] they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.     Matthew 5:13-16

    I have been recently studying this passage. I was wondering if salt and light are meant to be two seperate anolagies for the same concept or are the two meant to be two concepts. Salt is the churches doctrine and at the core the gospel, spoken truth.

    Light could be the aspect of the church that people see and visualize which is our love, treatment of one another. In essence its looking at the sides of the same coin namely Orthodoxy/Salt and Orthopraxy/Light.

    Am I completely off basis with this?
     
  2. Mar 24, 2013 #2
    Loopie

    Loopie Puritan Board Freshman

    It would also seem that light has an exposure effect. That is, by our lives, actions, and preaching of the gospel, we 'expose' and 'bring to light' the sinfulness of the world, and its need for a savior.
     
  3. Mar 24, 2013 #3
    Rangerus

    Rangerus Puritan Board Junior

    Good Christians are the salt of the earth, and good ministers especially (Matthew 5:13); and this salt is good and of great use; by their instructions and examples they season all they converse with, to keep them from putrefying, and to quicken them, and make them savoury.

    (2.) Degenerate Christians, who, rather than part with what they have in the world, will throw up their profession, and then of course become carnal, and worldly, and wholly destitute of a Christian spirit, are like salt that has lost its savour, like that which the chemists call the caput mortuum, that has all its salts drawn from it, that is the most useless worthless thing in the world; it has no manner of virtue or good property in it.
    Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible.
     
  4. Mar 24, 2013 #4
    thbslawson

    thbslawson Puritan Board Freshman

    It'd be great if light was the same as salt, then I could reaaaaly cut down on my sodium intake by leaving my plate in the window for a few minutes! :lol:

    Seriously though, most of the commentaries I've referenced on the verse speak of them being two related metaphors.
     
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