A Sojourner's Quest

5 8 / A S O J O U R N E R ’ S Q U E S T

character and in a way that produces the reflection of his character in all who willingly serve him.

So the Kingdom is indeed a key strand running through the Bible. If it seems less evident in Paul’s writings, that is because Paul often speaks of the Kingdom in terms of the sovereign plan of God realized through Jesus Christ (as, for example, in Ephesians 1.10), and, for very good reasons, uses less kingdom language. But it is incorrect to say, as some have, that the kingdom theme “disappears” in Paul. . . . The Bible is full of God’s Kingdom. . . . We learn more about the Kingdom when we view all of Scripture as the history of God’s “economy” or plan to restore a fallen creation, bringing all God has made – woman, man and their total environment – to the fulfillment of his purposes under his sovereign reign. One evening my seven-year-old son and I walked through a little patch of woods and came out on an open field. The sun was westering; the sky was serenely laced with blue and gold. Birds flitted in the trees. We talked about peace, the future and the Kingdom of God. Somehow we both sensed, despite our differences in age and understanding, that God desires peace and that what he desires he will bring. Someday, we said and knew, all the world will be like this magic moment. But not without cost and struggle. Jesus urges: “Enter through the narrow gate.” For “small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7.13-14). The Kingdom of God is life in abundance (John 10.10), but the way to life is through the narrow gate of faith and obedience to Jesus Christ. If Christians today want to experience the peaceable order of the Kingdom, they must learn and live God’s way of peace.

~ Excerpted from Howard A Snyder. A Kingdom Manifesto . “Introduction and Chapter One.” Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1985. pp. 11-25.