For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.—Galatians 5:14-15 TNIV

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.—Colossians 4:6 TNIV

As a scholar of rhetoric, I’ve long been intrigued with the metaphors we live by. Some of the most interesting ones we use equate ideas with food.

Consider the following everyday examples:
We weren’t being fed so we started attending a new church.
I wasn’t about to swallow that lie.
She fed us half-baked ideas.
All he did was regurgitate old theories.
She gave us some new ideas to chew on.
He spewed out his anger toward me.

You’ve surely noticed it in Scripture as well. For example, the Psalmist (19:10) declares that the decrees of the Lord are “more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb.”

The two biblical “food metaphors” that caught my attention this week are cited at the beginning of this column. The Apostle Paul was making a case for thoughtful speech in response to the challenges of communication with outsiders or people in conflict.

I wonder if Paul would have said it any differently if he’d been reading Facebook over the last few weeks as members of Mennonite Church USA have pummeled each with words.

With Paul, I fear that if we continue to bite and devour each other via social media, we might end up destroying each other. At the very least, we will erode the fragile sense of trust that holds us together in common cause.

Sometimes we speak of salty speech, a metaphoric reference to swearing like a sailor or the use of language not fit for polite company. But although Paul was familiar with the ways of the sea, he meant something quite different when he spoke of “speech seasoned with salt.”

In the idiom of his time, he was referring to speech that was both gracious and wise. How I long to see those characteristics displayed in the emotive expressions and emails we exchange with each other, the texts and tweets that race along the virtual highways of our day.

Several years ago, in response to heated political rhetoric in Washington, Sojourners invited Christians to sign a pledge of peace and civility. I signed that pledge and invite you to savor the selected quotations for yourself:

“We commit that our dialogue with each other will reflect the spirit of the Scriptures, which tell us, in relating to each other, to be ‘quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry'” (James 1:19).

“We recognize that we cannot function together as citizens of the same community, whether local or national, unless we are mindful of how we treat each other. Each of us must therefore ‘put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body'” (Ephesians 4:25).

“We pledge that when we disagree, we will do so respectfully, without falsely impugning the other’s motives, attacking the other’s character or questioning the other’s faith. We will be mindful of our language, being neither arrogant nor boastful in our beliefs as we strive to ‘be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love'” (Ephesians 4:2).

“We believe that it is more difficult to hate others, even adversaries and enemies, when we are praying for them. We commit to pray for each other, those with whom we agree and those with whom we may disagree, so that we may be faithful witnesses to our Lord, who prayed ‘that they may be one'” (John 17:22).

Salty commitments but filled with grace and wisdom. I can taste it even now.

Ervin Stutzman is executive director of Mennonite Church USA.