I try to think of the Labor movement, not as putting an extra sixpence into somebody’s pocket, or making somebody Prime Minister or Premier, but as a movement bringing something better to the people, better standards of living, greater happiness to the masses of the people. We have a great objective – the light on the hill – which we aim to reach by working for the betterment of mankind.
Matthew 5:14-16
This theme of a great light for the whole world was already famous before Jesus said these things. Centuries earlier in the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, we read lines like this, “I will also make you a light for the nations that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” That’s Isaiah 49, but the line is repeated twice more in the book. The common interpretation among Jews just before Jesus was that this light of the nations was the city of Jerusalem. People would one day flock to this city, they believed, this city on a hill and they would see the light and experience salvation.
Anyway, Jesus takes all this background, and applies it not to Jerusalem, but to his peasant students. They will be the city on a hill. They will be the great light of the nations. And they’ll do so through their good deeds. Jesus said “you are the light of the world,” actually this is the plural, “‘youse’ or ‘y’all’ are the light of the world, a city on a hill cannot be hidden,” and so on. “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”
It is a historical miracle that these nobody Galilean disciples did become a light on a hill for the whole world. Not just through their preaching, but through their good deeds. The kind of good deeds that Jesus insisted on in the Sermon on the Mount. We know that Christians were responsible for the very first international aid project. They were the first to attempt to free slaves. They were the first to found public hospitals. They were the first to offer free education for all and much more.
The original Puritans knew all of this well. Their idea of a city on a hill wasn’t about a political takeover, it was about a form of community life that pursued meekness, peacemaking and love. They didn’t always achieve it, of course. The Puritans are a microcosm of all of church history, they’re mixed. But like broader Christianity, the Puritans did have a lasting, positive impact on the world.
By John Dickson
The Puritans
Want to hear the rest of the episode?
Check out episode 113: “The Puritans”
