We Are The Light Of The World We Are The City On A Hill

[Saurabh Cloudas]

14You are the light of the world.(A) A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.(B) 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others,(C) that they may see your good deeds(D) and glorify(E) your Father in heaven.

"City upon a hill" is a phrase derived from the teaching of salt and light in Jesus's Sermon on the Mount.[n 1] Originally applied to the city of Boston by early 17th century Puritans, it came to adopt broader use in political rhetoric in United States politics, that of a declaration of American exceptionalism, and referring to America acting as a "beacon of hope" for the world.[1]

This scripture was cited at the end of Puritan John Winthrop's lecture or treatise, "A Model of Christian Charity" delivered on March 21, 1630, at Holyrood Church in Southampton, before his first group of Massachusetts Bay colonists embarked on the ship Arbella to settle Boston.[2][3] In quoting Matthew's Gospel (5:14) in which Jesus warns, "a city on a hill cannot be hid," Winthrop warned his fellow Puritans that their new community would be "as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us", meaning, if the Puritans failed to uphold their covenant with God, then their sins and errors would be exposed for all the world to see: "So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world".[4]

Winthrop's lecture was forgotten for nearly two hundred years until the Massachusetts Historical Society published it in 1839. It remained an obscure reference for more than another century until Cold War era historians and political leaders reinterpreted the event, crediting Winthrop's text, erroneously, as the foundational document of the idea of American exceptionalism. More recently, Princeton historian Dan T. Rogers has corrected the record, explaining that there was no grand sense of destiny among the first Puritans to settle Boston. They carried no ambitions to build a New Jerusalem. They did not name their new home Zion, or Canaan, the promised land of milk and honey. They sought only a place to uphold their covenant with God, free from the interference they experienced in England. By the second generation of settlement, New England was a backwater in the Protestant Reformation, an inconsequential afterthought to the Puritan Commonwealth in England and the wealthier Dutch Republic. In truth, America's sense of destiny came generations later.[5]

Winthrop's warning that "we will become a story" has been fulfilled several times in the four centuries since, as described in Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance by Kai T. Erikson in 1966.[6]

On 3 November 1980, Ronald Reagan referred to the same event and image in his election-eve address, "A Vision for America". Reagan was reported to have been inspired by author Manly P. Hall and his book The Secret Destiny of America, which alleged a secret order of philosophers had created the idea of America as a country for religious freedom and self-governance.[9][10]

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.[12]

His domestic policies would lead to recession; his foreign policies would make America and the world less safe. He has neither the temperament nor the judgment to be president, and his personal qualities would mean that America would cease to be a shining city on a hill.[14]

During the 2016 presidential race, Texas Senator Ted Cruz used the phrase during his speech announcing the suspension of his campaign.[15] President Barack Obama also alluded to President Ronald Reagan's use of the phrase, during his speech at the Democratic National Convention the same year, as he proposed a vision of America in contrast to that of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.[16]

In 2017, former FBI director James Comey used the phrase in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election:[17]

In Australian politics, the similar phrase "the light on the hill" was famously used in a 1949 conference speech by Prime Minister Ben Chifley, and as a consequence this phrase is used to describe the objective of the Australian Labor Party. It has often been referenced by both journalists and political leaders in that context since this time.[20]

And Jesus is now calling the disciples to walk a different path. To have form with a function. He is reminding them that they are the salt of the earth, so they ought to taste like salt. He is reminding them that they are the light of the world, so they ought shine like lights.

And this is the same thing that we are trying to strive for at City on a Hill, our new Young Adult/Post Graduate Ministry here at Evergreen SGV. Our aim is not to just have another ministry for the sake of having another ministry. Our aim is not to just participate in more forms of Christian activities. Our aim is not to just have a form without a function. No, our aim is to know God, follow God, represent God, bless others, and be a vessel by which people might see our good works and give glory to God. Our aim is to be salty salt and shining lights. Our aim is to be a City on a Hill.

We want to be a community where we would be able to gather to support one another in pursuing this. We hope to be community radically shaped by the love of Christ and conformed to His desires for the glory of God. And today our mission is to propel one another to reflect Christ in our hearts' meditations, life decisions, and daily interactions.

So if you are looking for a place to pursue these things, we want to invite you, not just to check out this ministry, but to come and be part of this ministry, especially as we gather with a purpose, one of which is to be a City on a Hill.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

But I was not asked pointed questions about how my sound theological understanding was producing the shining light of good works. I was not required to give clear evidence that I was living like a city set on a hill. No doubt my brother examiners were gracious in giving me the benefit of the doubt.

There is no abstract truth more beautiful to the regenerated human soul than the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6). Jesus really is the light of the world (John 8:12). His word is a lamp to our feet (Ps. 119:105), and in His light we see light (36:9). It is altogether beautiful and wonderful to understand.

14 lYou are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 mNor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so nthat1 they may see your good works and ogive glory to your Father who is in heaven.

God Almighty in his most holy and wise providence hath so disposed of the condition of mankind, as in all times some must be rich some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity; others mean and in subjection.

First to hold conformity with the rest of His world, being delighted to show forth the glory of his wisdom in the variety and difference of the creatures, and the glory of His power in ordering all these differences for the preservation and good of the whole, and the glory of His greatness, that as it is the glory of princes to have many officers, so this great king will have many stewards, counting himself more honored in dispensing his gifts to man by man, than if he did it by his own immediate hands.

Secondly, that He might have the more occasion to manifest the work of his Spirit: first upon the wicked in moderating and restraining them, so that the rich and mighty should not eat up the poor, nor the poor and despised rise up against and shake off their yoke. Secondly, in the regenerate, in exercising His graces in them, as in the great ones, their love, mercy, gentleness, temperance etc., and in the poor and inferior sort, their faith, patience, obedience etc.

Thus stands the cause between God and us. We are entered into covenant with Him for this work. We have taken out a commission. The Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles. We have professed to enterprise these and those accounts, upon these and those ends. We have hereupon besought Him of favor and blessing. Now if the Lord shall please to hear us, and bring us in peace to the place we desire, then hath He ratified this covenant and sealed our commission, and will expect a strict performance of the articles contained in it; but if we shall neglect the observation of these articles which are the ends we have propounded, and, dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnal intentions, seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us, and be revenged of such a people, and make us know the price of the breach of such a covenant.

Each day, the sun rises to warm, illuminate, and provide growth on earth. The moon and stars light the night, serving as navigators long before smartphones. We reach for the light-switch when we enter a dark room, and we depend on our accumulation of knowledge to shed light on our lives. Light permeates into every crack and crevice of our lives and beings, whether visible, tangible in regard to warmth, or metaphorically enlightening. The origin of phos describes how light makes manifest, evident, exposed or clear.

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