The Grove Church

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail work through the final parable of the series — the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25.

It's the last judgment. The Son of Man sits on his throne. Everyone is gathered. Sheep on the right, goats on the left. The sheep get in because they fed Jesus when he was hungry, gave him water when he was thirsty, clothed him, visited him in prison. The goats didn't. Neither group has any idea when they saw Jesus in any of those situations. The answer: whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.

On the surface it sounds works-based. Charlie and Abigail work through why it isn't — and why making it works-based actually creates more problems than it solves. They get into who's actually being judged here, what premillennial eschatology has to do with a thousand-year reign, why hell was created for Satan and not for people, and what it actually means that the sheep didn't even know they were doing it. Charlie also shares a story about Styrofoam coolers and water bottles at a bus stop that lands the whole thing better than any theological framework could.

Next up: the wrapisode — church history, Luther and Zwingli, Constantine, Irenaeus (Abigail's request), and the first time Abigail is sending Charlie a list of things she wants covered.