Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. - Colossians 4:6
They say that one way to lower blood pressure is to lower your intake of salt. I have done some research on this and to make a long story short, I'm not sure if this is more of an urban legend or a scientific reality. But to the extent that it is true, believers should have high blood pressure because Paul commands the church to let their speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt.
Salt has many functions. It flavors food. It preserves food. It also rusts cars. Assuming camels or donkeys didn't deal with rust issues we can be confident Paul wasn't thinking about our Toyotas or Fords. When Paul talks about salt in this passage it probably has to do with flavoring. Just like salt makes food taste good so speech should taste good to other believers.
Still, this isn't the insight I came to in this passage. The insight came from asking the question, what's the connection? What's the connection between letting your speech be gracious and knowing how to answer each person? This is the way the verse is constructed. Let your speech be gracious so that you may know how to answer each person." In other words, Paul equates gracious speech with the skill of offering good answers to people.
This is a bit of a strange connection, don't you think? I would expect Paul would say "let your speech always be gracious so that people will be encouraged and built up." Paul doesn't make that connection. He counts on gracious speech that is seasoned with salt as a means of knowing how you ought to answer each person.
Even though Paul doesn't use the word "listen" this is what he seems to angle at. Paul suggests that seasoning salt on your speech is the act of listening. For Paul, gracious speech is "knowing how you ought to answer each person." Paul isn't talking about answering people in general, he is talking about answering each person to their uniqueness. No two people or their situations are alike and to speak with grace requires that there is plenty of understanding. How else does someone know how to answer the uniqueness of each person?
Here are some suggestions to more gracious speech:
1. Assume you don't have enough data on a given person to really understand them. This will drive you to get more data before you try to solve a problem you don't even understand.
2. Learn to ask questions. Most people enjoy talking about themselves. Outside of Toby Kieth and his song titled "I want to talk about me" most people don't state that fact as boldly. Yet, most people like talking about the things they are interested in, sharing their thoughts and their opinions. Asking questions is a way to learn and love another person because it values them and gives them a platform to share what is important to them.
3. If you have something nice to say to someone, don't withhold it. Ten years ago I would have thought this was a silly point to make. Today it makes a lot of sense to me because I often find myself thinking things and then keeping it to myself. Of course, a lot of things I think should definitely be kept to myself. You know what I am talking about. If there are positive things that would build another person the opposite is true, speak them and don't keep them to yourself.
May God help his church to listen and understand so that our speech will always be gracious.
In Christ,
Pastor Kevin
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