Marking Time: Forming Spirituality through the Christian Year

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Thy Kingdom Come! Readings on the Kingdom of God, continued

2. Obviously, we cannot follow Jesus if we do not know what he taught. The main theme of his preaching and teaching was the Kingdom of God. Most Christians do not know this, yet they call him Lord and Master Teacher! 3. But we are then faced with an immediate problem. As soon as we know the main theme of his teaching, we automatically misunderstand it. Kingdom means something different in the biblical idiom (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek) than in contemporary English. To us “Kingdom” means “realm” (a place over which a king rules) or “a group of people who live in a king’s realm” (the people over whom a king rules). In the Bible, however, the primary meaning of “Kingdom” is “reign” or “rule.” The King dom of God thus means the reign of God or the rule of God. The Kingdom of God is not a place nor a people, but God’s active, dynamic rule. The Kingdom is an act of God, i.e. something he does. 4. The burden and purpose of Jesus’ three year public ministry leading up to his death and resurrection was to preach, proclaim and teach about the Kingdom of God (Mark 1.14ff; Matthew 4.17, 23; 9.35; Luke 4.42ff; 8.1; 9.2, 6, 11; 10.1, 9; Acts 1.3; 28.31). 5. Jesus was the original proclaimer of the Gospel, and he proclaimed it originally in terms of the Kingdom of God (Mark 1.14ff; Matthew 4.23; 9.35; 24.14; Luke 20.1). The good news is about God’s reign. Of course this is a metaphor, a word picture describing a profound reality. 6. Jesus’ teaching on the Kingdom of God as we will see, determines the basic structure of all his teaching, and indeed the structure of the teaching of the entire New Testament.

7. Why did Jesus choose the word picture “Kingdom of God” to proclaim the good news of God to the world? Two basic reasons:

a. It was biblical. While the exact phrase “Kingdom of God” never occurs in the Old Testament (maybe once in 1 Chronicles 28.5), the idea is everywhere present in the Old Testament. God is always and everywhere King in the Old