Matthew 5:14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
Just one verse of perhaps the most stream-of-consciousness-what-it-means-to-follow-Christ passages offered straight from the-Son-of-God’s lips to man’s ears.
This thought was foundational to the birth of the American colonies (I have edited the text for easier reading):
…for we must Consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; 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, we shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God and all professors for God’s sake; we shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into Curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whether we are going…
Unfortunately, America has taken to the form of only one tidbit from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, and none of the substance. In any case, who is John Winthrop?
John Winthrop (12 January 1587/88 – 26 March 1649) was an English Puritan lawyer and one of the leading figures in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the second major settlement in New England, following Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led the first large wave of immigrants from England in 1630 and served as governor for 12 of the colony’s first 20 years. His writings and vision of the colony as a Puritan “city upon a hill” dominated New England colonial development, influencing the governments and religions of neighboring…