Colosians 4:6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
I love this scripture but have often wondered how the grace and salt are transfered into real current conversation.
In Virginia folks love conversation. We have had many such conversations here where people have salted their grace for us.
So what does this mean? We know the physical form of grace meaning elegance in movement. To use this in speech is to have courteous goodwill. In other words to be polite, respectful and wanting good for the other person.
In the ancient world salt was not seen as just a flavoring or spice it was a preservative. Since they didn’t have fridges salt kept meat from spoiling long term. We still love beef jerky. Everything must have been like that. So when the Bible talks about salt it means preserving.
In our conversations we are to salt our grace is to be interesting and at the same time we preserve Christ’s love and we preserve the relationship with the person we are having a conversation with.
We have been fascinated watching these birds share the bird feeder. The red, yellow and other birds take turns. They wait for one another and often share the feeding perch. All day long the birds sing to each other. They sound so happy.
One thing that we have discovered is that having a conversation where we have genuine goodwill (grace) and salt (caring, love, compassion, and true interest in the other person) is a fulfilling way to make and keep friends, and walk away from the conversation singing.
