Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?” – Luke 14:34, ES

 

Are tantalizing aromas trailing from your kitchen as we get closer to the end of the year?

For us, the pandemic shut-down baking fad waned once our favorite places started opening up again. Fall activities and in-person school are in full swing for our family and a dormant oven sits lonely in our kitchen.

However, with the holidays on their way, it’s time to fire up the stove because a few family feasts are in store this year.

The tasty morsels we create to celebrate special events delight our tastebuds. Christmas doesn’t feel the same without them. Our family enjoys baking Christmas treats to bless our neighbors. We pack up the yummies in festive boxes and visit the people who live nearby. Our family lives up a hill in the middle of a pasture. It helps to bridge the gap between us and our neighbors when we deliver gifts to share around tables. And I don’t think anyone will reject a box of delightful goodies so this tradition for us is back on for this year.

As I wrote my book, Counting Up To Christmas: 24 Gifts from the Gospel of Luke, I discovered that Jesus appreciated a good meal shared at a table too. Throughout the Gospel of Luke, we encounter Jesus during eight different meals and witness His use of mealtimes as teaching opportunities. One food he used, in particular, demonstrates the type of seasoning we can provide to the people around us.

Saltiness is a gift from Scripture that opens when we read Luke 14. At the time Jesus uttered Luke 14:34, His audience had an intense understanding that salt represented their covenant with the Lord, which initiated when their ancestors left slavery behind in Egypt.

To further open this gift, let’s examine how this covenant originally tasted:

“You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt.” – Leviticus 2:13, ESV

Salt, a preservative, symbolized permanence. In antiquity, this represented the binding, unchanging character of a covenant. Historically, these grain offerings, in the form of unleavened bread, sustained the Israelites during the first Passover. This flat, salted bread provided the energy needed to flee Egyptian captivity. Imagine the leftover sensation of salt lingering in the mouths of the fleeing Israelites, reminding them of God’s presence and promise as they escaped enslavement.

As believers, we continue to represent the covenant of salt because we are the salt of the earth! (Matthew 5:13) We are a gift of seasoning, bringing intensified flavor to the world.

Believers should be characterized by the taste experience of a particular kind of salt—freshly smoked. The flavor of this salt is unusual and has a particularly exhilarating taste. Its flavor

lingers uniquely, perhaps because it is unusual when compared to table salt.

I want to represent saltiness to those around me, particularly as we approach what may be a challenging Christmas season for many. I pray the Lord will use us to season others in a way that is uncommon and lingering as we curate our holiday experiences this year. Let’s how we can be extra salty and sprinkle others with deliciously flavored words that point to the best spiritual meal ever—Jesus, the Bread of Life. (Luke 14:34, Mark 9:50)

Prayer:

We praise You, God, for reflecting Yourself in creation, even in something as simple as salt. Thank You for extending Your covenant of salt to us as believers in Christ. We pray that we would be flavorful salt to those around us. Please help us to constantly point others to our main spiritual course: Jesus. Amen.

It is my honor to invite you to Count Up To Christmas in the Gospel of Luke with my book, a new podcast that opens each day’s gifts with a guest, and an enriching online community to help you stay accountable throughout the month of reading.

A Recipe for Smoked Salt

Ingredients:

Salt (I prefer pink Himalayan because it is such a beautiful color)

Wood chips (The best flavor comes from applewood)

Equipment:

A foil pan

A few sheets of tin foil

A charcoal grill

1. Choose your salt. Pink Himalayan, Kosher, and Maldon salts are types I have tried. If you plan to give some away as Christmas gifts, pink salt is quite lovely.

2. Choose your wood chips. When I gleaned information about the best type of wood chips on the internet, consensus deemed applewood the most delicious salt flavoring.

3. Place each salt variety you have in small, open foil packets. Fire up your charcoal grill with the wood chips to at least 350. Place the salt packets inside and leave them 1-2 hours, stirring now and then.

4. When you’re done, let it cool and keep in a sealed container. You will enjoy the unique flavor for many meals to come!

 

Jennifer Elwood resides in Yakima, Washington, and hosts the Refuge Bible Study Community where women cultivate their faith in the shelter of God’s Word. She is a lover of Jesus, wife of Tom, mom of three, and bonus mom and grandma. She enjoys travel, rich coffee, European chocolate. Going to Israel for the first time in 2015 sparked her desire to write and she has not stopped since.

Counting Up to Christmas: Twenty-Four Gifts from the Gospel of Luke is her first book.

She also contributed to Mommy and Me: Cooking with Jesus as a writer and editor.

Stay up to date with her at Jennifer Elwood

Jennifer Elwood Author on Facebook and Instagram, and the Refuge Bible Study Community and Podcast (which launches December 1) on YouTube.

Click to purchase the book on Amazon

Counting Up to Christmas Facebook group.

Counting Up To Christmas on  Instagram:

The Refuge Bible Study Community and Podcast on YouTube:

The Refuge Podcast with Jennifer Elwood is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts beginning December 1st.