Interesting fun fact. In 1946 James Stauffer Herr bought a small potato chip company from two cousins in Lancaster Pennsylvania. My grandfather was one of those cousins. Through the years they became a leader in the potato chip industry. In 1981 Herr’s began producing pretzels. Their Sourdough are my favorite, they are thicker than the regular pretzels and the salt used on them makes them perfect!

Before I left South Carolina my sister gave me a bag of regular pretzels for travel snacks. They weren’t Herr’s but I took them anyway because I rarely say no to travel snacks. So off I went with my bag of pretzels sitting safely in the center console. Eventually the road munchies attacked and since my pack of Reece Peanut Butter cups had slipped out of reach, I opened the pretzel bag and tossed one of them into my mouth.

There is almost nothing that tastes good about an unsalted pretzel. In fact, I would say that they are quite unpleasant to eat. In my opinion the best thing about pretzels is the salt. That is what makes them taste good.

This got my mind running – as it does – and I started thinking about what Jesus said about Christians being the salt and light of the earth. Which got me pondering what it means to be the salt. Salt is used for many good things, it is a flavor enhancer, a food preserver, and a key component to making pretzels taste good. But salt can’t do its job if it does not remain pure. When salt is contaminated by other chemicals it becomes useless and in fact can do more harm than good.

What does this say about us as Christians? If we are the salt of the earth, we must enhance our world without being influenced by it, without losing our purity or our effectiveness. When we allow impurity to enter our lives, we are contaminating our ministry and giving those around us a ‘bad taste’ of what it means to be a Christian.

What good is salt if it has lost its flavor? What good are we for the Kingdom if we allow impurity into our life, if we contaminate our testimony with things that are contrary to what we profess.

I did not finish my bag of saltless pretzels, not because they were bad, but because I expected more goodness than what I found in the bag.