# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1910_S8
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

8 Proceedings of the twenty-third convention

So in all fields; so especially spiritually through the Gospel.

In connection with this name one may also think that salt thaws ice,
so that water flows. In this way Christians transform the desert
of this earth into a pleasure garden of God.

Salt also has healing power and is widely used for medicinal
purposes. It cleanses and strengthens. Salt baths have
already brought new life to many a weak person.

Christians have become a salt to the sin-sick peoples of the heathen world,
dead in sins. They have brought them health, life
and strength. Think of what the Gospel accomplished in ancient
times! See what it still accomplishes today in all mission
fields! — But also for all kinds of ills in politics,
in business, in society, etc., Christians are to be a healing salt.

But as salt works only where it penetrates the thing in question,
so also Christians cannot exercise their salt nature in
a hermit's life, but must in a certain
sense meddle, not on their own authority but as their calling brings it with it,
that is, where God himself involves them. As to the manner
however in which this is to be done in each individual case, no definite rules
can be derived from the general image.

"Now, how the salting is done is easy to understand, namely that
one is to step forward and say: Everything that is born on earth and
lives is good for nothing, rotten and corrupt before God. For since he says plainly
and clearly, they are to be a salt of the earth, that is, over everything
that the world is, it must follow that everything that is in the world and
is called flesh or man must be rebuked and thoroughly salted, so
that one condemns all the world's holiness, wisdom, worship, devised by themselves
apart from God's Word, as belonging to the devil and
to the abyss of hell, unless it holds to Christ alone." (Erl. 43, 68.)

May Christians never forget that they are so highly favored by God
and appointed the salt of the earth! May they never become insipid salt
and be struck by the Lord's threat: "It is thenceforth good for
nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men."

2. "You are the light of the world."
(Matt. 5:14.)

The light of the world is Christ, as he himself declares:
"I am the light of the world," John 8:12; 9:5. And from Christ,
the source of all light, Christians receive their light. Through
Christ Christians become children of light and of the day, 1 Thess. 5:5,
and they shine as lights in the world, Phil. 2:15. "Ye were sometimes
darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord," Eph. 5:8.
It is God's grace alone that turns darkness into light, the