(05/06/2018) Salt of the Earth

 

Today, reply is on mankind’s use of the earth, and the divine commission that mankind preserve Creation by behaving as the “salt of the earth.”  Animal and human efforts to control access to choice locations, resources, and settings on the earth have resulted in abuse and destruction of the earth as the dwelling of mankind.  Through Jesus Christ, men are yet to be a new creation, and the sacred servants and workers who will continually purify and preserve life on the earth.  A fighter in the “Yahoo! Answers” Religion and Spirituality forum using the  ID “noway_1no” (Level 1 with 169 points, a member since December 20, 2013) posted the following:


When did Jesus tell his fellows they were the salt?


THE GOLDEN ARROW:  For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.  Salt is good:  but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it?  Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.  (Mark 9:  49-50, King James Version, KJV)


THE DOUBLE DAGGER:  Mankind’s Priesthood in Heaven (02/16/2018); Bible Borders and Walls (08/29/2017); Where Will Believers Go? (10/26/2016); Why Was Lot Spared? (12/20/2015); Salted With Fire?  (09/24/2013); A Halo Upon Jesus? (09/25/2013); Circumcision and Promise? (07/16/2013); The Bible and Stupid People (07/17/2013)


“noway_1no”, here are some points intended for mature Christian readers:

(1.)  In the holy writings salt is used as a medicine when closing open wounds, as a form of currency, as a flavoring for foods, and as a powerful poison that would be sown  to destroy the fertility of an enemy’s land for many generations (40 year periods).

(2.)  In keeping with the divine plan that mankind should populate and cover the earth, the Patriarch Abraham was made a nomad whose household may have included thousands of workers and their families.  Abraham sought a “city of GOD” (yet to come as the New Jerusalem).  Every where they traveled he acknowledged the living GOD, and established and left behind altars and wells of water.  Abraham also established a permanent burial place (we say, cemetery) for internment of his own family members.

(3.)  GOD commanded a sabbath of rest for the earth; every seven years, the land was not to be planted and seeded to produce a crop.  The creation of “the city” by mankind and the creation of “the farm” (fixed areas developed and maintain for growing crops) have resulted in men seeking to secure and exploit the land for extended periods (decades; their whole life time; permanently).  Home, farm, and property ownership tie men to the land, and sees the land in continual works. 

(4.)  Where mankind has defiled the land, and refused to let the soil lay fallow, divinity often has purged the earth using earthquakes, natural disasters, warfare, and wildfire.  GOD also uses weather events to remove the blood of battle and crimes such as murder as well as insecticides and chemical additives intended to increase the production of the soil, and that become a permanent feature of the land.

There is far more that should be said, correctly examined, and spiritually apprehended.  (For example, (5.)  Mankind is to exist on the earth as a peculiar fruit of a divine planting.  Consider again the following that uses language from the Bible:  1st Corinthians 3:  5-11, King James Version (KJV):  5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?  6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.  7 So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.  8 Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one:  and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.  9 For we are labourers together with God:  ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.  10 According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.  11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.)  Even so, I trust this fragment will be useful.  Be it unto you according to your faith.

THE BLACK PHOENIX
Washington, DC