I am sure you have heard this expression before “Take it with a grain of salt.” When people use this phrase, usually it is used to tell someone not to take what someone says too seriously. This expression may not seem so bad, but in reality, this is not something we want people to say about us when we talk to others. Let me explain.

Seasoned with salt - In (v6) Paul says, “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” What Paul is saying here I think is very clear, we should be careful in the way that we speak to other people, but why does he say, “seasoned with salt”? What happens when you season something with salt? One, salt was a way that people back then used to preserve food. Two, salt gave food flavor which made it palatable to eat. Third, salt was also used for thousands of years to clean and treat wounds. Paul knows what salt is and what it does and that is exactly why he says that our speech should be seasoned with salt. Our speech should produce words that preserve that which is good, holy, and righteous. When we speak to other people, our speech should preserve on our lips the good and eternal words of God so that those words can be preserved in the minds of people. If people take our words with a grain of salt that is not good because that means they are not truly hearing the word of truth, we speak to them. Most likely if people take our words with a grain of salt, it is probably because our speech is not only filled with truth, but it is mixed with other things like crude joking, perversion, deception, or evening raising our voice or yelling. If the outside world does not really put any weight into what we say, it might be a good thing to examine ourselves to see if our speech is mixed with other things that are not godly. Our speech should be seasoned with salt in that when we speak to other people it can be palatable to them. That means that our speech is filled with things they can take as food for thought, which should be words that we find from scripture. I think many times we can get so caught up in making a point that our words to others taste bad. We should always speak the truth, but we should do it in a way that has a pleasant taste to others. People will be offended when truth is spoken to them, but make sure that it is only the truth that is offensive, and it is not your tone or demeanor. Our speech should be seasoned with salt in that our words can be used to clean and treat deep wounds of the heart. Our words should be used to develop a speech pattern that can be used to treat deep wounds of the heart that can be helped with gracious, loving, wise, and truthful words. God cares about the way, the tone, and the demeanor in which we speak to other people. We should be aware that the way we speak to people can definitely turn them away from hearing the truth of the gospel or the way we speak to anybody can hurt the testimony of Christ. That is why under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul writes to us to remind us that our speech should bring healing to others, preserve God’s truth, be palatable to others, and should be gracious and gentle. What I also want to remind you, is that this is not just about behavior change either, the way we speak is a deep-rooted heart issue that needs to be dealt with by the gospel. I encourage you to look at Christ, and see how he always told people the truth, and when dealing with sinners who came to him, he always had speech that was truthful but seasoned with salt. Look to Christ, if this is something you struggle with, ask him to do surgery in your heart spiritually so that you may be able to look and act more like Christ in this matter.