The Grove Church

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail close out the parables series the way it deserves — with a Q&A episode where Abigail asks the big picture questions she's been sitting with across ten months of episodes.

They cover how Jesus's original audience heard "the kingdom of God" (hint: they were expecting military victory and Roman blood), why Jesus taught in parables instead of just saying what he meant, what gets lost when we approach Scripture with a Google-everything mindset, and why reading Jesus is so different from reading Paul. They also get into whether the Old Testament God and the New Testament God are actually different (they're not — we just misread both), why Jesus isn't as chill as the paintings suggest, and what it looks like to read a parable the way it was actually meant to be read.

Abigail's closing summary might be the best one of the whole series: if you can get outside your own cultural context far enough to ask what would have shocked them, you'll learn something you couldn't get anywhere else.

Plus: Alone the survivalist show, the Zwingli joke Charlie is very proud of, Inception's spinning top, and whether Charlie could last three days in the wilderness (yes, probably).

Most of us have been taught to treat serving people and telling people about Jesus as two separate things — maybe even competing ones. Do you help someone in need, or do you share the gospel with them? Charlie's answer: yes.

In week five of Walking the Ancient Paths, Charlie walks through Matthew 5:14-16 and makes the case that being the light of the world isn't something you work up to. It's who you already are. Right now. In whatever stage you think you're in.

The question isn't whether you're ready. The question is whether you have the eyes to see the opportunities God is already setting up around you.

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.

The culture around us is lying. It's telling us that more is always better — more stuff, more success, more achievement — and that life is found somewhere on the other side of having enough. Most of us know it's a lie. We're buying it anyway.

In week four of Walking the Ancient Paths, Mark takes on two of the most countercultural practices in the ancient Christian tradition: simplicity and fasting. Not as guilt trips or religious obligations, but as two very specific ways to push back against the noise — to declare with your life that God is your portion, and that He is enough.

One of them is a lifestyle. The other one is a knockout punch.

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail work through the Parable of the Wedding Banquet in Matthew 22.

A king throws a wedding banquet for his son. The invited guests don't come. He sends more servants — some are ignored, some are killed. The king destroys the city. He opens the invitation to literally anyone off the street, good and bad. The hall fills up. Then he spots one man without wedding clothes and throws him out.

Charlie and Abigail slow down on that last detail — because if everyone was invited off the street with nothing, how did everyone else get in with the right clothes? The answer changes the whole frame of the parable. What makes you worthy to be at the banquet isn't what you bring. It's what the king provides.

They also get into who the originally invited guests represent, why the Babylonian conquest is actually relevant context, what John the Baptist has to do with Elijah, and what "many are invited but few are chosen" actually means when practically everyone in the story gets in. Plus a wrapisode teaser — one more episode after this, then the parables series wraps.

Christians have been doing these two things since the very beginning. They've started wars, split denominations, and derailed would-be alliances between reformers who agreed on everything else. And at The Grove, if we're honest, we've probably undersold them in an attempt to stay out of the controversy.

In week three of Walking the Ancient Paths, Charlie takes an honest look at baptism and communion — what they are, what they aren't, why they've carried so much weight for 2,000 years, and why that weight is worth honoring. Not to tell you which tradition is right, but to make sure that whatever you believe about them, you're not treating them as mere formalities.

They're not. They never were.

Most of us have a complicated relationship with both of these. Celebration can slide into pride — quietly convincing yourself that maybe you earned some of what God gave you. And confession can collapse into shame — that inner voice that doesn't just say you did something wrong, but that you are something wrong.

Neither of those is what God is after.

In week two of Walking the Ancient Paths, Charlie walks through two Psalms written by the same man at very different points in his life. Psalm 40, where David is overflowing with gratitude for what God pulled him out of. And Psalm 51, where he's sitting in the wreckage of his own worst choices.

Together they paint a picture of what it actually looks like to walk with God — not managing a ledger, but cultivating a relationship. One where you celebrate freely and confess honestly, and both keep leading you back to the same place.

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail work through the Parable of the Ten Virgins in Matthew 25 — and Abigail's initial read of the story was completely wrong in the most entertaining way possible.

Ten bridesmaids are waiting for the bridegroom to arrive so the wedding party can begin. Five bring extra oil for their lamps. Five don't. The bridegroom is delayed — they all fall asleep waiting. When he finally shows up at midnight, five of them are ready and five aren't. The five who ran out of oil go to buy more. By the time they get back, the doors are shut. Lord, Lord, open the door for us. His reply: I don't know you.

Charlie and Abigail dig into what the oil actually represents, why everyone falling asleep doesn't disqualify you, what separates nominal belief from genuine faith, and why this parable is specifically not about works-based theology. They also get into what a bomb under a chair has to do with belief, why "Christian adjacent" isn't enough, and how this parable connects directly to the Parable of the Talents that follows it.

They're two episodes from wrapping the entire parables series — and Charlie teases a finale episode where Abigail comes in with actual questions. Plus: Toy Story should have ended at 3, Tom Hanks' brother does all the toy and video game voicework for Woody, and Pixar bloopers were genuinely iconic.

There are paths that have always led to life. Tried, proven, ancient paths — the kind that don't go out of style any more than a well-made shoe does. We know they're there. We just don't walk them.

In the first week of Walking the Ancient Paths, Mark opens in Jeremiah 6:16 and lands on one of the most underused spiritual practices in the modern church: Scripture memory and meditation. Not just reading the Bible, not just hearing it taught — but planting it so deep in your heart that it's there when you need it most.

There's a difference between throwing spices on the outside of meat and actually marinating it. One changes the surface. The other changes the center. That's what this series is about.

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail work through the Parable of the Tenants in Matthew 21 — and Jesus is not being subtle anymore.

Coming right off the Parable of the Two Sons, Jesus is still in the temple courts, still talking to the chief priests, and he's about to unload. A landowner builds a vineyard, sets it up completely, rents it to tenants, and leaves. When harvest time comes and he sends servants to collect, the tenants beat them, kill them, and stone them. He sends more. Same result. Finally he sends his son — surely they'll respect my son. They kill him too.

Jesus then asks the chief priests what the owner should do. They answer their own indictment. And then Jesus quotes Psalm 118: the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Therefore the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to people who will produce its fruit.

They knew exactly who he was talking about. And they started plotting how to arrest him.

Charlie and Abigail dig into what it means that God sent his son expecting respect — and what that says about God's character. They get into the massive theological question of Israel vs. the church, what premillennialism has to do with American foreign policy, and C.S. Lewis's Lord, Liar, Lunatic argument — and the fourth option modern scholars try to add. Plus: Hugh Jackman's voice, The Greatest Showman Reimagined, and what happens in between every episode of Cultivate.