Infiltrating Culture as Salt and Light by Sister Faith

              Two key Biblical characteristics which illustrate how Christians are to influence culture are found in Jesus’ metaphors of believers being the salt and light in the world.  Jesus challenges his disciples in Mark 4:21-23 “. . .Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don't you put it on its stand? For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear."  (NIV)   Similarly in the Mark 9:50 passage, Jesus urges the disciples to realize that “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.” (NIV)  For secular hearts to have a holistic understanding of the tangible and relevant benefits of a relationship with Christ, the faith community must prayerfully focus more on building honest, transparent and caring personal relationships with the non believers.  

            It has been my experience that followers of often Christ hide within the comfort zones of church membership and fellowship activities to perpetrate the illusion of compassionate discipleship. However, the faith community’s role as salt and light in a secular world, demands actions of visible self-denial and sacrifice.   According to Henri J Nowen, Donald P. McNeil, and Douglas A. Morrison, like Jesus, we must “be present to the suffering world here and now and . . . respond to the specific needs, of those who make up our world, a world that claimed Jesus Christ as His own.”²  

            The darkened human heart, mind and spirit of humanity needs the believer’s reflected light of Jesus.  Like a city on the hill, the Christian who shines with the brilliance of the Lord Jesus’ truth cannot be hidden from the view of the world. The city is representative of a better community that awaits the person living outside the Grace of God.  As ambassadors of light, our good works glorify God and help others find redemption.   

            As we joyously brighten the corners of the spiritually gloomy secular world, we must also remember that just as light is an essential sustainer of life, so is our salt a preservative for

inhibiting humanity’s spiritual and moral decay. From the Scripture, Jesus requires His followers to be like salt in preserving and preventing the immoral corrosion of sin in the lives of unregenerate hearts. I would argue that Christians have done more to preserve this nation than anything else we could name. Like salt, with the help of the Holy Spirit, the faith community is to aggressively penetrate and purify those segments in our culture it touches with the reality of Jesus Christ, God’s grace, forgiveness and the plan of redemption. Like salt, the whole counsel of God is relevant, applicable, and needful to every generation in every culture throughout the church age. 

            As disciples of Christ, when we neglect to be the light and salt of the world we are saying to the world “YOU CAN GO TO HELL, WE DON’T CARE.”  As bearers of the light of Christ we are to help lost souls see their fatal disease of sin. As the salt of the earth we need to make people thirsty for the saving and transforming power of the Gospel. The transformed lives of the faith community are potent weapons in the hands of the Holy Spirit to bring home the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the hearts of sinful men and women.               

            Paul imperatively stresses submission to God’s ordained authority. In Romans 13:4 Paul writes “For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing.” According to this passage, civil ministers are God's servants, and agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoers. Those who serve the state as government leaders, military defenders, and law enforcement officers are given the duty to avenge legislation and administer punishment.  According to this scripture their calling can be positive, encouraging those who are good or punishing those who are evil. As operating in its God appointed role, the government blesses and vitally protects society. However, when government trespasses its rights and responsibilities contrary to the Biblical precepts of Scripture, Christians have a moral obligation to obey God rather than man.

            Government can alter this relationship to the extent that it does not provide the security, safety and peace for the people it governs.  Violence, poverty, and injustice become rampant.  Christians have an obligation to discern when leaders in government fulfill their God ordained purpose in allowing the governed to live, travel, and work in safety. Government leadership endangers its people the most when they cannot discern the evil influences of the Domination System that breakdown the family structure, oppress the poor, wage unfair war, and exacerbate racism.  Good government leaders must acknowledge the depravity of man; anything less is an invitation to destruction our society.  As salt and light, we must hold them accountable.

            Again, the Church must effectively intercede for moral leadership and advocate that the government uphold the mores of peace and fairness for all people.  A government can only be as moral as its leaders. As the salt and light of Christ to the world, we must be involved intellectually, civilly and spiritually in selecting and monitoring good government. As Dr. Richard Mouw argues in Politics and the Biblical Drama “Christian political involvement must take place before the cross, and it must be a means of sharing the agonies of the cross….to count as preparatory of his coming kingdom.”³ 

            Faithful discipleship from the individual and community are shaped by the passion and compassion for Chrisitians to show Jesus as the Son of God and the only Savior of the world. Being salt and light of the world makes the Christian uniquely qualified to, as Carol Miles writes “let our redemption, our joy, our peace, and our love for each other permeate our lives to such an extent that we become the light of the world, a city on a hill that cannot be hidden.”⁴

            We cannot rely on another “gospel” like the “gospel of politics, or media, or captialism” to deify secular abstractions propagated in the name of morality and teach people that they can be good apart from God.  As we honestly point out the deficiencies of the fallen worldview, compassionate evangelism can effectively reach beyond divided cultures, within abused sectors of the global village,  through the insincere rhetoric of systemic world domination powers. Turning up our noses, mocking, belittling, and boycotting the culture by separating or compromising the Lord’s standards covertly assimilates believers with those who are enemies of the Gospel. We must find sincere compassion for infiltrating the culture as the salt and light of Jesus. Living and not just sharing the gospel as a daily part of our missional journey is  exhibiting, according to Frost “ the mission of practicing generosity, hospitality, justice and peace” ⁵  and will give credibility to the work of Christ as His followers. Like Paul and Barnabas, we must be not afraid and speak for our king Jesus Christ. We must be ready to turn the world upside down for the Gospel is plagued with racism, unjust war, poverty, and environmental devastation. I thank Jesus Christ for the privilege and responsibility of my faith. While many people claim to be Christians, the salt and the light of the Holy Spirit  rightly divides those who are obeying God from those who are the savorless salt and the dimly disguised artificial light which permeates secular society in the name of the Gospel.  As Jim Wallis notes his prophetic evangelical book in God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, “the answer to bad theology is not secularism; it is good theology.” ⁶ There is a Bible based approach to social change of how we as Christians are to influence culture.  We must be the salt and light of the Gospel.

1. Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1996). 463  

2. . Henri J. M. Nouwen, Donald P. McNeill, & Douglas A. Morrison, (1989). Compassion:  A Reflection on the Christian Life. (New York: Doubleday, 1989). 119

 ^3.Richard Mouw, Politics and the Biblical Drama. (Grand Rapids, MI

: Williams B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1976). 134

^4. Carrie Miles, The Redemption of Love: Rescuing Marriage and Sexuality from the Economics of a Fallen World. (Grand Rapids :

5. Michael Frost. Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post Christian Culture. (New York : Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2006). 288

6. Jim Wallis. God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It. (New York : HaperCollins Publishers Inc.,2005). 149

  Call Us for Prayer   

                at ...

803-980-NJOY 

                                            6569

Listen to the Broadcast

Click the above link  and hear two of our recent broadcasts!   You may also wish to email us at: faith@jesuswellofsalvation.com  and receive the program fmp3 file each week