Chuck Larsen

Paul instructs the Colossians to practice gracious speech “always.” That’s how he begins verse 6 of Chapter 4. It says, “Let your speech always be gracious.” He adds an interesting phrase to finish the verse and his exhortation. He goes on and says, “seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” What does speech that is seasoned with salt sound like? A short perusal of the use of the word “salt” in the New Testament suggests that salt contains purifying, perpetuating, and antiseptic qualities. In coming to grips with this exhortation in my life, I believe that the “purity” of our speech refers to thoughtfulness. Salt was part of nearly every sacrifice in the Leviticus system. “Holiness” was essential! After many years in the Navy and both Mediterranean and Western Pacific cruises, I’ve heard and used every “unclean” word in the human language. My life was seasoned with the wrong kind of spices. You’ve heard it said, “he cusses like a sailor.” Well, I was a sailor. We say once a sailor, always a sailor. So, you could say that I am a role model. But that’s not the kind of role model I want to be. Sadly, when I’m not thoughtful, the spices from my old life will still season my speech. I have to remember that impure sacrifices to the Lord are unacceptable.

The preservation quality of salt often refers to the Christians’s influence on a sinful society. Our presence, values, morals, votes, candidates, opinions, e-mails, and other legal and civic activities can retard the deterioration of society. I’ve always thought it a bit ironic that when Abraham dickered with God over the preservation of Sodom & Gomorrah, there were not even ten righteous people to be found in the entire city. That’s because Lot, his wife, and his children were not the “salt” they were supposed to be. When Lot’s wife turned back in longing for the sinful life of Sodom, God turned her into a pillar of “salt.” When we tour Israel, there is a pillar near the Dead Sea that’s called “Lot’s wife.” We don’t know if that’s real or not, but the idea of Lot and his family not being the “salt of the world” for their fellow citizens in Sodom resulted in his wife being turned into salt. Is that Irony?

The last quality of salt you find highlighted in the Bible is its “antiseptic” quality. There should be some kind of “healing” character to it. People should always feel somewhat better from having spoken to us. They should have gathered something: not only positive instruction but coming into contact with us ought to do them some good and to make them feel better. I think that is what Solomon had in mind when he wrote in Proverbs 12:18, “There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” David Jeremiah tells of Larry Dossey’s study on the power of “healing words.” “One of the most significant studies he cites was carried out by a doctor in 1988. In this experiment, 393 people in the coronary unit of a hospital were divided into two groups. Half the group was prayed for faithfully by a group of devout Christians, while the other half of the group was not prayed for. Those who were prayed for fared significantly better. The study cited only two explanations: chance coincidence or the fact that prayer really works. They figured the possibility of chance being the answer as 1 in 10,000. So unless you think that study stumbled into a 1 in 10,000 chance solution, it is probably better to assign the positive results to prayer. So significant were the results that the writer said if it had been a drug that caused the positive benefit instead of prayer, it would have been labeled as a breakthrough and rushed into medical use immediately.”⁵

⁵ Larry Dossey, Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine (San Francisco: Harper, 1993).

How we present ourselves to the world is something we should pay attention to. The Apostle Paul thought that making a good first impression was important. Speaking about how we present ourselves to the world, Paul writes in Colossians 4:5-6, “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Notice the word “always.” Our speech should always be “gracious.” My speech is often graceless. I regret to confess that my tongue has always been my greatest weakness. It gets me in trouble more than anything else. What I say, how I say it, and when I say it all contribute to what might be called “graceless” speech. We need to be consistent in gracious speech at all times. Whereas in verse 5, Paul seems to be addressing first impressions. In verse 6, he stresses a continued, consistent testimony.

The longer you know someone, the more you find about them to dislike. We all have worts, scars, pimples, etc., that we like to hide from those on whom we make first impressions. But sooner or later, they become apparent. You know the old saying, “Familiarity breeds contempt…” There is some truth to that. The true uniqueness of Christ was that the closer you got to Him, the more you saw of him, the better he looked.  Not by the way he dressed because his dress was totally unremarkable. That’s a good lesson for us regarding our grooming standards and dress codes. When facing his many accusers, Jesus challenged them to examine his life to see if there were any deficiencies. There were no sins to accuse Jesus of. They had to make up charges against him. Pilate answered all the religious leaders when he said of Jesus, “I find no flaw in Him.”

I’m not always sure what “gracious speech” sounds like. That’s where wisdom comes in. Paul says we should “walk in wisdom” before we speak. Hendriksen describes what gracious speech is, “Perhaps the best description of gracious speech is found in the words of Paul himself: “speaking truth in love” (Eph. 4:15), and the best example in the words of Jesus, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).”^[1] According to James, there isn’t anything more powerful than the tongue, like the bridle on a horse. It directs where he goes. Like the rudder on a ship, it will steer the whole ship. James concludes that there is nothing more difficult than controlling one’s tongue. The tongue is my greatest challenge. One of my favorite memory verses is from Proverbs 22:11. It reads, “He who loves purity of heart, and whose speech is gracious, will have the king as his friend.” Jesus is my King, and I sure want to be friends with Him.

^[1] Hendriksen, William, and Simon J. Kistemaker. 1953–2001. Exposition of Colossians and Philemon. Vol. 6. New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.