A few years ago, I wrote a post about reading Matthew 5:13 a little differently. Well, today I’m reading it the same way, and I just wanted to note that again.
Perhaps the whole preservation quality of salt has distracted us from the point of this verse. Perhaps Jesus employs a salt metaphor not because salt preserves, which of course it does, but because it provides a clear example of something that can lose its natural qualities (worldliness) and then serve a less honorable purpose (trampling).
So, perhaps Jesus is saying disciples are salt because they have lost their worldliness and are now objects of trampling only. To me, this makes the transition from 11–12 to 13 make more sense. In the next post, I want to try to explain how this flows into the next three verses.
Brian W. Davidson 