Charlie Loften: The questions we wrestle with as Christians about who God is, how do we live out our faith, what is the Bible, what is the truth of the Bible, what are we supposed to believe? How are we supposed to live? There are really big, deep questions that we ask each other, that we ask God, that we wrestle with ourselves. And that's why the Cultivate podcast exists, to help us go deeper in our understanding of who God is, his word, and the way that he's called us to live. Everyone, welcome to the Cultivate Podcast with the Grove Church.
I'm Charlie Loften. I'm the lead pastor there. And we are here with
Abigail Boone: I like DJ Bagel. DJ Bagel? Uh-huh.
Charlie Loften: I was gonna I was gonna move I was gonna move away from pointing out the fact that you're wearing headphones.
Abigail Boone: Think you need to get headphones. You're actually gonna have to flag me if I'm talking not loud because I can just hear myself crystal clear. But I on top of my harmonica learning and piano learning. I have strongly considered a mixing board. Really?
That'd be so fun. Okay. We had a basketball tournament recently and one of our band guys brought out his DJ booth.
Charlie Loften: He does that professionally.
Abigail Boone: I know and I don't want to be that but just imagine do it do it. No, but just imagine like in an afternoon. I'm like, I need to pick me up.
Charlie Loften: And so you know, all said you
Abigail Boone: put you put you put you you yeah, seems fun.
Charlie Loften: What would be your go to genre of music?
Abigail Boone: 90s jazz rap. Like where they had jazz where they had like samples that they would be pulling that was before like copywriting came in. Okay. And so it was easy to pull any samples from anything even like Walk This Way with Run DMC or whatever.
Charlie Loften: They did sing that with Aerosmithers. Right.
Abigail Boone: But that was like the start of like, okay, maybe we could make money off of people sampling our
Charlie Loften: music This and is, you know, I mean, I've said this before, and we could do our own podcast on this, I guess. But like to me, it is probably top three most historically important
Abigail Boone: million percent one million percent
Charlie Loften: one hundred years or whatever. I mean, I probably got a little Beatles song in there, maybe an Elvis song in there, But as far as like, just like the amount of impact that that particular song had, you know, from rapping with having hooks and and
Abigail Boone: they were at the height. They're huge Aerosmith.
Charlie Loften: No, not yet. They know they had that bring up had started to fade.
Abigail Boone: Oh, really? They had been really big. Okay.
Charlie Loften: They're on their way out. Them brought them back. Yeah.
Abigail Boone: So I'd definitely go for that. Like when Queen Latifah was still wrapping that little era. There's a bunch of like Detroit and New York movements happening.
Charlie Loften: They made a TV show with Queen Latifah where she's an action star. Sorry.
Abigail Boone: What What
Charlie Loften: show? I'm just I'm just saying what show it was it was a show back in the 80s and 90s called the equalizer. And then they made movies about it with Denzel Washington's and then they remade it as a TV show with Queen Latifah as I mean to me to me that that surpasses like I remember the first time I went to see a Bob Odenkirk action movie. I'm like really call Saul but it's actually really good about maybe Queen Latifah as action star TV.
Abigail Boone: The big thing. I wish you would go back into the rap career like that was when tribe was all the indie tribe. I just really love that era. So I would mix in all of those any of the jazz samples.
Charlie Loften: Well, we just have to make this happen now done.
Abigail Boone: Can you fund me getting my soundboard?
Charlie Loften: Want you playing the harmonica while you're doing it.
Abigail Boone: I'll get one of those like necklace things that hooks it
Charlie Loften: Matthew chapter five starting with verse 13. We are now back in the Sermon on the Mount to kind of put us where we are in Texas is very early. He's just done the beatitudes. So he's talking to a very poor talking to the masses, talking to a relatively poor group of people. Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are who hunger for righteousness. Blessed are merciful. Blessed are the pure.
Blessed are peacemakers. Blessed are those who are persecuted. He's starting by turning everything around, right? Blessed you. You said, who do you know that's really blessed?
And he just flips Who the would think most people would think
Abigail Boone: like the comfortable way.
Charlie Loften: Have a lot of something where they're they got a lot of money, they've got a lot of power. Oh, no, they're not the ones that are blessed. The ones that are the ones that are blessed are the ones who've got a great family. Even still, that's having something, right? I know that I'm blessed by the blessings that I have.
I have been given things and he's saying,
Abigail Boone: actually, a
Charlie Loften: characteristic blessed is being blessed is actually shown by adversity, lower status, have not having being persecuted, those sorts of things. And so then he's saying all of this to them, and then he ends with rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven. For in the same way, they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Abigail Boone: What have they known about the prophets?
Charlie Loften: Yeah, these people would I mean, were they would have had a very minimum been culturally Jewish. And I don't know that at that point, there were very many people who weren't also at least somewhat religiously Jewish. So they would they would have had a decent amount of familiarity with this. Verse 13, you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden, 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. In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven.
Abigail Boone: It's not the ending I was expecting. All the other ones we've read have like do this. Or don't do this and you won't have life. I know that was a couple episodes ago, but a lot of them have like you better hear this, right? You better not miss what I just said.
Charlie Loften: Well, I mean, we're kind of we're kind of we're kind of doing this in chunks, right? And we've kind of got, you know, here's here's the beatitudes and then he says this and from here he's, you know, going to sorry, and he's gonna start talking about their relationship with with the law and the prophets and he's going to go in there to the thing that we talked about. We've been talking about like, it's not just it's not just murder, it's hate. It's not just it's not just adultery, it's lust. And so we're he's the Sermon on the Mount is not what we would call a just one cohesive kind of thread that when it's all connected, it makes sense.
Is really, really is more than anything's kind of broken down into these sections that are they have some relation to each other, but
Abigail Boone: not me of Proverbs.
Charlie Loften: Yeah, it's almost like long, like short nuggets. Yeah, but more instead of just one verse, you know, one to two verses, you know, four to eight verses, just kind of like here, here, here, here's an important thing, which is again, a lot of people think that this is really kind of a piece milled. Yeah, he's kind of pulling together when Jesus talked. These are the things that he said
Abigail Boone: last time, a stump, stump speech. Okay.
Charlie Loften: Yeah. Yeah.
Abigail Boone: I like that.
Charlie Loften: And so, you know, probably there were times when he would go into one of those more than the other. When Jesus spoke, this is what he talked about. And then one of them again, he is talking to a crowd of people and says to him and describes to them as salt of the earth,
Abigail Boone: on a hill or a house on a
Charlie Loften: hill, the light of the world, right?
Abigail Boone: A lamp that's not hidden.
Charlie Loften: Yeah. And so what is he talking about here?
Abigail Boone: I mean, it seems like being a representation to the world around them.
Charlie Loften: Yeah, it's interesting. I was sitting here thinking about this in this reread. If you were to describe somebody now, I mean, he's a salt of the earth kind of guy.
Abigail Boone: He's a really good time. I feel like like he's a really interesting guy.
Charlie Loften: I feel like it's like like a an easy hang versus a tough hang. I think it's also also has very blue collar implications down to earth. Yeah, just he just he just he just a guy. He just he just a he just a bro. Somebody you can actually talk to relate to salt salt.
Just a just a guy. He's not smart. He's not rich. He not good looking. He just does
Abigail Boone: a good old boy.
Charlie Loften: Good old boy. Is that the understanding you get just in the brief versus here?
Abigail Boone: Okay. What is mainly just in the fact that that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven. I guess mainly the glorify your father in heaven that it's talking about something that would make God proud or reflect him accurately.
Charlie Loften: Yeah. So what would salt have been used for?
Abigail Boone: The flavor
Charlie Loften: flavor was also used as a preservative but pre refrigeration.
Abigail Boone: Really? Doctor:
Charlie Loften: So your uncooked meat could last longer salted.
Abigail Boone: Okay.
Charlie Loften: Doctor: You couldn't put in the fridge even with salt on it. You can't live in like, put it in the freezer and forget about it for months, not that long, but you didn't have to cook it and eat it all at once. So salt was both a preservative and and and and a, give the spice some flavor, right? And so he says, so you are the salt of the earth.
Abigail Boone: So you're preserving something and you're animating it?
Charlie Loften: You are. You are giving life. You're giving life to it, whether it be spice or preserving it. You are giving it. You're giving you're giving life to the earth.
And if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?
Abigail Boone: Yeah, that's kind of confusing. Give it more salt. Do what? This is like, it more salt.
Charlie Loften: Well, mean, salt stops being salt, it's just something you that gives you know says no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot miss I guess from our sector man I guess you can you can melt ice with it.
Abigail Boone: That's okay. I mean like
Charlie Loften: you can put it down on the ground makes it easier to kind of walk. But it's not really doing what salt was should be doing do anymore, which is I mean, I get a I think in that moment, it's kind of like, yeah, I'm I'm like I'm like I'm like salt. I'm unlike salt.
Abigail Boone: So he's saying like don't let the salt run out. Yeah, because you do what
Charlie Loften: salt is supposed to do because if you stop being salt, you just become mean, it's not like you're completely useless, but you're not doing what you were most meant to do.
Abigail Boone: He says you are the salt of the earth. He's like thinking anyone who hears this and all the stuff up above. If you do these things, you are the salt of the earth.
Charlie Loften: Yeah. Okay. So let's let's let's let's get let's get our all the way through the metaphor. So now we go to the second one. You are the light of the world.
So what does light do?
Abigail Boone: Gives you good sight.
Charlie Loften: I can make sure I can see. Guides. Is a
Abigail Boone: guide. Helps reveal helps uncover things when you
Charlie Loften: can't I think if you think about the opposite, think about darkness. I mean, there's there's hope, there's again, there's life there, it allows me to function, it allows me to really experience the room that I'm in, like I can enjoy what I'm doing.
Abigail Boone: Can see what I'm doing. I mean, not pulled up against thing. Life probably wouldn't happen unless there was light at that time, right? That like the the town probably really did shut down. Yeah, when there was no light on.
Charlie Loften: And so in the same way, like you don't want to you don't want to stop being salt. You know, and your light, you don't want to. You don't put light under a under a bowl, right? You you don't hide lights, well I've got this light, but I don't want it to get out there, so I'm going to cover it up. So it just doesn't do what light is supposed to do.
Now you put it on a, you put it high up and you put it out in the middle where everybody can There's see a benefit. Know, you put you and if you put it on a you put us a city that's got all these, you know, all these buildings in it and you've got candles and things going on all of them, you know, like I wonder where that city is now. Can say it there it is.
Abigail Boone: I always think that when I drive into the Fayetteville over the hill, you can see like the illuminating light at night
Charlie Loften: And this comes back to which got another good kids song.
Abigail Boone: This little light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine
Charlie Loften: Hide under a bushel. No. I'm gonna let it
Abigail Boone: shine. Right?
Charlie Loften: I mean, that's what it's gonna show.
Abigail Boone: We need to do more kids performances at our church. Okay.
Charlie Loften: You know what, Natalie would say if you said that to her.
Abigail Boone: You can do it.
Charlie Loften: Go right ahead, Congratulations. Are not doing if you're not out, if you're not doing the live stream anymore, you're looking for something to do. Come teach our kids songs. In the same way, Let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven.
Abigail Boone: Need you to break down that one a little bit more. Like the it seems funny that it would be to show off your good deeds.
Charlie Loften: Well, okay. So the idea is whoever he's talking to whether he's talking about who they currently are where he's manifesting something in them. He's kind of assuming the person who's hearing this is going to live it out. Right? I don't think he's sitting there talking to somebody who happens to be sitting there, hearing it and is skeptical.
If you happen to be within the sound of my voice right now, you are the light of the world. I think he's speaking about people who are there, but are really going to embrace his idea of kingdom living.
Abigail Boone: And
Charlie Loften: so you're bringing life to the earth, you're bringing flavor, you're bringing, you're preserving it. You're bringing light to dark places, which is a metaphor for hope and vision and all these sorts of things. You don't hide that you don't hide real light and you shouldn't hide who God has made you.
Abigail Boone: In
Charlie Loften: fact, you should live your life in such a way where people see who you are. Okay. Which is going to seem contradictory at sorts of some things that Jesus is going to say a little bit later.
Abigail Boone: You
Charlie Loften: know, when you when you give, don't be all clanky, clank, clank, clank, clank. And when you fast, don't make yourself look right.
Abigail Boone: Exactly what I was thinking about.
Charlie Loften: So he said, don't even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, which is just a crazy little metaphor.
Abigail Boone: So is this, what is that?
Charlie Loften: He doesn't say, let your light shine before people in such a way. Well, they will see how impressive you are.
Abigail Boone: So am I putting like current cultural context to see their good deeds
Charlie Loften: to see your good deeds? So that what
Abigail Boone: glorify your father in heaven.
Charlie Loften: There you can hide your light. You can shine it in such a way where people will be impressed with you. Or you can shine it in such a way where people will be impressed with God. Okay. So think there are two different ways to shine.
You can shine bright in a way that draws attention to you, or you can shine in a way that draws attention to God. Okay. And so I think the question is not necessarily how do you make sense? How do you square that circle or whatever? It's like, I think I think the deeper question is how do you shine light in a way that makes people want to glorify God?
How do you shine light in a way that points people to God?
Abigail Boone: Are you asking me?
Charlie Loften: I think that's the question.
Abigail Boone: That's why
Charlie Loften: I might as well ask you. You're the only one here.
Abigail Boone: Me? Who said that?
Charlie Loften: Sleep doesn't talk.
Abigail Boone: Call back to something.
Charlie Loften: Call back around. That you didn't get to hear.
Abigail Boone: I mean, I guess it would be like unexplained kindness. Like whenever I'm thinking about the stuff that you were saying he listed earlier all of that would be like someone who's let's see Meek or shows Mercy or Peacemaker. Those are kind of an you'd be unexpecting not expecting to receive goodness from those kinds of things,
Charlie Loften: right?
Abigail Boone: And so maybe that would be like this kind of characters stand out and feels different.
Charlie Loften: Something about something about your character is different. You know, there's there's a difference between standing on top of a building and throwing money out there to crowds of people and quietly paying for someone's meal. I mean, there's just a way that's just kind of like, here's an act of kindness that I'm obviously I'm doing it publicly because I'm doing it to you. But I'm doing it in a way that does not draw attention to me,
Abigail Boone: but it probably always reflects those. And so those the be attitudes.
Charlie Loften: Yeah, right. And so if I do something really kind for you, but I also do it in a way where it doesn't seem like I'm doing it for the attention or the glory that is going to be different. Yeah, there's people who are unkind. And then there's people who put on kind,
Abigail Boone: so that people can see how generous and philanthropic they are.
Charlie Loften: Then there's this. And I think he's describing something very different, and it seems like you either aren't nice, or you're attention seeking. He's saying, No, you don't want to withhold what it is that God has given you. You shine want with it, But you want to do it in a very particular sort of way. And so I think I think is like, let your light shine in such a way where people will see.
Then they will glorify God. I think that I think that all of that phrase describes the method by which you let your light shine. Okay.
Abigail Boone: So is he giving them a charge to like make sure this keeps happening? So the saltiness doesn't run out,
Charlie Loften: right?
Abigail Boone: Okay, I
Charlie Loften: think the idea is, if you if you stop being salty. Then you become useless. And so the metaphor is a little. It's like, mean, you can't. Doesn't stay salty by your use of
Abigail Boone: it. You
Charlie Loften: know, eventually you just consume the thing that you've salted. Right. It's not it's not it's not the world's most perfect metaphor.
Abigail Boone: But he's saying keep the saltiness active. You know, it's the way
Charlie Loften: it is. So the metaphor would be like, if you keep being salty, you'll be able to keep being salt.
Abigail Boone: Okay,
Charlie Loften: which again, the metaphor is not perfect. Jesus is perfect, but this metaphor is not perfect. But it's still it's still makes good And same way with light. It's just like, let your light be light. Light under a bucket doesn't make any sense.
Abigail Boone: So it seems like in a lot of the parables. It's been concept or something that's kind of like flipping it would have a lot of people at this time like they wouldn't have approached generosity and for like those reasons. Like where the beatitudes opposite from how obviously the beatitudes were of like who is blessed, but is he kind of flipping on its head what it looks like to make him known or spread the light?
Charlie Loften: I don't think that the people that he's talking to would have ever thought of themselves in that kind of term.
Abigail Boone: Okay.
Charlie Loften: But I don't think that's changed much. I mean, you can be an arrogant American and I can get up and preach this sermon, which I have many times and say, God has called you to be the light of the world to bring hope and life to people.
Abigail Boone: You say that almost every sermon.
Charlie Loften: And people are kind of like,
Abigail Boone: Me?
Charlie Loften: You must be talking about yourself. Only stage people with people with high levels of talent.
Abigail Boone: You
Charlie Loften: can't just be talking about me, regular person. Most people think again, you say you're the light of the world and you look behind you. Yeah. And so I think that's the thing that turns turns it up is like, we're, it's not the special people, not the educated people. It's not the smart people.
It's not the talented. It's not the rich. It's you. You are the light of the world. You are the salt of the earth.
And we will know this more by your character than your importance.
Abigail Boone: Well, it also seems to kind of shift that like someone in the audience hearing you preach and say that say those words, they're thinking well, oh, no saltiness is just the guy who speaks on stage, but he's kind of calling out not mundane and that they're not important, but pretty mundane things that actually he's describing. This is actually what brings saltiness to all of these things is being merciful is being compassionate is being the hands and feet of like, you don't have to be the guy up on stage,
Charlie Loften: which is where you can get where the etymology history of the word. And that's what etymology history of bugs.
Abigail Boone: Did that in college.
Charlie Loften: That's my history, the history of word usage. Okay, So salt of the earth meaning just a regular guy. Jesus is talking
Abigail Boone: about the regular
Charlie Loften: guy, regular people. Yeah, but being a regular person does not make you salt of the earth. He's telling regular people that you have the ability to be salt of the earth. You can be again, you can lose your saltiness. You can be a salt of the earth guy and not be quote the salt of the earth.
But he is talking to people that we would now call salt of the earth and telling them you can be what brings life to the world.
Abigail Boone: I
Charlie Loften: think the new usage of the phrase salt of the earth emphasizes the ordinariness of it as opposed to the the power that salt and light has on the world. Would have been he can't be talking about me. Where, you know, salt of the earth is you're, you're, you're, you're a good normal guy. But what he's saying here is you ordinary people are in fact, what brings life to the world. If you again, if you will, bookended by the parable we looked at two weeks ago, if you will hear all of this, yeah, listen and obey.
Yeah, then you're going to have something that the world desperately needs. And if you will take this thing that God has given you and this life that you now have, and you will put it out there, then people are going to look at that and be like, Yeah, wait a second. God is real and good. Yeah,
Abigail Boone: which I this may be zooming out the parable way too far, but it kind of feels like from every parable we've looked at thus far. Pharisees were not super concerned with outsiders or like any like they're just kind of like doing their religious practice and if you're an outsider like you're not even clean enough to be around but this feels very like go out and be like spread this let people see it.
Charlie Loften: Yeah, there was an evangelistic component what we would call an evangelistic component to Pharisees.
Abigail Boone: There was
Charlie Loften: yeah, I mean, he talks about it like, hey, you'll you'll work really hard to get a convert. But at the same time, did have a really low view of low people. Yeah. And so if you were low, then you weren't worth there were people worthy of their message, but there were there was a significant amount of unworthy. And so I think Jesus is definitely flipping that to
Abigail Boone: where he's like, did give it to everyone
Charlie Loften: you can mostly considered to be the unworthiest ones are in fact, the most worthy, the hurt person that is first will be last the person that's last will be first. It's not it's not the it's not the people who are well that need a doctor. It's people who are sick that are need a doctor.
Abigail Boone: It kind of feels just like the cool thing about light is you can't really contain it. Right. And so
Charlie Loften: like You can, but it would be stupid.
Abigail Boone: There's And so like no boundary to who could see these good deeds. And whereas like it feels like the Pharisees would be like you may be cut off and not even have access to hear these things. This is like well the lights on someone's going to see it toward just feels like more open access to like know everybody needs to experience this everyone needs to be able to see like the light should be dispersed to everyone who can just come across it right more open ended and come all.
Charlie Loften: It's good. Yeah. And yeah, and so I think there is there's there's something powerful. He's talking to us. He's talking.
He's talking. This is not. This is not this is not an inspirational thing to give to the government to the to the wealthy to people who are on stage doing things. It's not it is as the more common that you are, the more that this reflects a view. It is it is true.
And there and there really is. I mean, there's an implied if to this. If you are someone who follows my teaching, that's the implied is if but other than that, there is no, hey, Abigail, if you work really hard and you do this and you do this and you do this, you can become the light of the world. If you are someone who is a follower of my teaching, You
Abigail Boone: are that
Charlie Loften: present tense, the light of the world and your choices are not whether or not you are not light. It is whether you are light under a bucket or on a table.
Abigail Boone: Yeah. Well, and also I feel like it's different in that you're not salt based on vocation your salt based on a posture that comes with being aligned with Jesus teaching.
Charlie Loften: Yeah. And again, it is not something that you aspire to. It is just a question of your relative effectiveness at this moment. Are you going to choose to be effective light and effective salt? Or are you going to be hidden light?
And well, mean, you're still salt, I mean, you can make the muddy road easier to walk on for the horses.
Abigail Boone: Did they use horses then or was it when the donkeys used?
Charlie Loften: I guess it would have been donkeys. Donkey. Yeah. Okay. It just felt right to say horses.
Sure.
Abigail Boone: Let's see how many episodes we can tie horses back into.
Charlie Loften: Don't say that. Now that's gonna anyways. Challenge accepted. Right. Well, thank you for for this.
And again, this is a really important if you've heard me preach at all, it's kind of like Abigail said, you know, this is really important to me. Just this idea that you who are listening to this, who are striving to be someone who is a follower of Jesus, this is this is a present reality for you. You have a light to give to the world that needs to shine. And I hope that you will come to genuinely believe that and you will live your life in such a way where people who are living in darkness, need a little bit of flavor and preserving can experience the love of God through you. It's very powerful, very powerful parable here.
And so glad you got to join with us. Sorry.
Abigail Boone: It's still it's still relevant. Think it's the interesting part that like they for sure needed salt and light, but it's still just as strong of a call today of what's needed to bring into the darkness
Charlie Loften: and all the wealth and the power and affluence has not changed it. It is the life and light and salt has not come through prosperity. We are infinitely more prosperous than they were and just as desperate for salt and light. So thanks. Thanks, Bagel.
I'm sorry. Thank you guys for joining us encourage you to join us back. We continue with our parables and over the next several weeks and we would love to connect with you any way that we can on a Sunday or online. Find us at thegrovechurch.org about our Sunday services, both streaming and in person. There's a form you can fill out where you we can get to know you.
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