{"id":342,"date":"2014-08-06T12:00:39","date_gmt":"2014-08-06T12:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?p=342"},"modified":"2014-07-29T20:53:47","modified_gmt":"2014-07-29T20:53:47","slug":"matthew-513-16-salt-and-light-geographical-backgrounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/08\/matthew-513-16-salt-and-light-geographical-backgrounds.html","title":{"rendered":"Matthew 5:13-16; Salt and Light (Geographical backgrounds)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hidden within Jesus\u2019 teaching on salt and light is this little statement, recorded in Matthew 5:14: \u201cA city on a hill cannot be hidden.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the literary and symbolic contexts, Christ is obviously emphasizing the idea of his people living faith-lives out in the open, like light that shines and fills a house. But he also may have had a more literal meaning, rooted in the geography of ancient Galilee.<\/p>\n<p>Bible historians tell us that within the region of Galilee at the time of Jesus there was a small town called Safed. (In fact, Safed still exists today\u2014now a few millennia old.) This little town sits at the top of a mountain and, in fact, is part of the mountain range from which Jesus delivered this famous Sermon on the Mount.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe city of Safed is visible day or night,\u201d reports theologian, R.T. Kendall. \u201cWhether it is the same little city that Jesus had in mind, I don\u2019t know. But Safed is two thousand years old and certainly could have been the same city Jesus had in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps, as he was expounding on salt and light, Jesus motioned toward Safed as a visual object lesson to illustrate his point, \u201cA city on a hill cannot be hidden\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/workscited.html\">Works Cited<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>[SOM, 78]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u2126\u2126\u2126<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Bible Study Nerds\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-for-bible-study-nerds.html\">About: For Bible Study Nerds\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Mike Nappa\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-mike-nappa.html\">About: Mike Nappa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2014 to present by\u00a0<a title=\"Nappaland Communications Inc. official website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nappaland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nappaland Communications Inc<\/a>. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hidden within Jesus\u2019 teaching on salt and light is this little statement, recorded in Matthew 5:14: \u201cA city on a hill cannot be hidden.\u201d In the literary and symbolic contexts, Christ is obviously emphasizing the idea of his people living faith-lives out in the open, like light that shines and fills a house. But he&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":571,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,2],"tags":[117,119,118],"class_list":["post-342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geographicalbackgrounds","category-matthew","tag-city-on-a-hill","tag-r-t-kendall","tag-safed"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Matthew 5:13-16; Salt and Light (Geographical backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/08\/matthew-513-16-salt-and-light-geographical-backgrounds.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Matthew 5:13-16; Salt and Light (Geographical backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hidden within Jesus\u2019 teaching on salt and light is this little statement, recorded in Matthew 5:14: \u201cA city on a hill cannot be hidden.\u201d In the literary and symbolic contexts, Christ is obviously emphasizing the idea of his people living faith-lives out in the open, like light that shines and fills a house. But he&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/08\/matthew-513-16-salt-and-light-geographical-backgrounds.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-08-06T12:00:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-07-29T20:53:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mike Nappa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Matthew 5:13-16; Salt and Light (Geographical backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/08\/matthew-513-16-salt-and-light-geographical-backgrounds.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Matthew 5:13-16; Salt and Light (Geographical backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds","og_description":"Hidden within Jesus\u2019 teaching on salt and light is this little statement, recorded in Matthew 5:14: \u201cA city on a hill cannot be hidden.\u201d In the literary and symbolic contexts, Christ is obviously emphasizing the idea of his people living faith-lives out in the open, like light that shines and fills a house. But he&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/08\/matthew-513-16-salt-and-light-geographical-backgrounds.html","og_site_name":"For Bible Study Nerds","article_published_time":"2014-08-06T12:00:39+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-07-29T20:53:47+00:00","author":"Mike Nappa","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/08\/matthew-513-16-salt-and-light-geographical-backgrounds.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/08\/matthew-513-16-salt-and-light-geographical-backgrounds.html","name":"Matthew 5:13-16; Salt and Light (Geographical backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-08-06T12:00:39+00:00","dateModified":"2014-07-29T20:53:47+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/08\/matthew-513-16-salt-and-light-geographical-backgrounds.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/08\/matthew-513-16-salt-and-light-geographical-backgrounds.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/08\/matthew-513-16-salt-and-light-geographical-backgrounds.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Matthew 5:13-16; Salt and Light (Geographical backgrounds)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/","name":"For Bible Study Nerds","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Mike Nappa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575","name":"Mike Nappa","description":"Mike Nappa is an entertainment journalist at FamilyFans.com, a bestselling author\u2014and a notorious Bible Study Nerd. He's a former youth pastor who shepherded kids on staff at Chuck Swindoll's church in Southern California\u2014and he's a bestselling and award-winning author with more than a million copies of his books sold worldwide. Plus, he holds a degree in Christian Education with an emphasis in Bible Theology. So, you know, he\u2019s got that going for him. Mike is also a pop culture dork who watches too much TV, reads too many comic books, utters too many bad words, laughs at all the wrong jokes, and often gets in trouble because he says whatever he happens to be thinking at the moment\u2014like quoting an R-rated movie in the middle of a sermon. Yeah, he\u2019s a mess (just like you!), but he kind of likes it that way. Most of all, Mike Nappa loves Jesus, and he figures that covers over a multitude of sins. Learn more at nappaland.com\/mikenappa.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.biblestudynerds.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/author\/mnappa"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":344,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions\/344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}