What is the Kingdom of God?
The Kingdom of God is the central theme in Jesus’ preaching. It is like a fishing net, a mustard seed, a ball of yeast, a treasure buried in a field, a master forgiving debts. You must forget your family to find it; you must leave your riches to squeeze into it; you must be born from above to see it. Perhaps the best definition is seen in Jesus’ prayer for it:
“Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10)
The Kingdom of God is where God’s will is done: Where sin has no hold, where death has no sting, where the accuser is thrown down, where swords are beat into ploughshares, where the lion lays down with the lamb, where widows and orphans are loved, where cooking pots are holy like vessels in the Temple, where there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female.
With the way the world is today, the pain and suffering, the malicious treatment of one person to another, this Kingdom seems pretty far off. Yet Jesus also says:
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near” (Mark 1:15)
There has been a definitive and irreversible victory over sin, death, and the powers of rebellion in Christ. The sick are healed, the lame walk, the dead are raised, the captives are set free, the veil has been torn, and the spirit is poured out on all flesh. The war is won. He is on the throne.
How do we know? The Church is our proof. The Church is a sign. It is a sign that makes real that which it signifies. It is an outward sign of a spiritual reality. It is a sacrament of the Kingdom. Although we don’t always look it quite as well as we should, the Church persists in history as an assurance that what Jesus has accomplished has taken hold and will take hold in the fullness of time.
posted by SaS at 7:44 PM
2 Comments:
Hey Scott (or should I say new 'blogger buddy')
I can't believe I just referred to myself as a 'blogger buddy'.
Anyways, nice site. You have some good things to say. There is a great book regarding Church as a sacrament of the Kingdom of God- "Suffering Divine Things: Theology as Church Practice" by Reinhard HUtter. Its a pretty dense read but a good one.
It also reminds me of a time I was at the ETS and heard another Duke Divinity School prof. Stanley Hauerwas talk about his book "With the Grain of the Universe: The Church's Witness and Natural Theology" which are his Gifford lecture notes. In the book he basically says that the church is the closest thing we have to a natural theology. On the back of the book, one commentor said that Barth is the hero of the book, (I suppose in that he restored a 'proper' understanding of Natural theology.) Anyways, Stanely Grenz got up to give a response to the Hauerwas' book and said no Barth is not the hero- it is the church. The church is the best example of a natural theolgy that we have.
Anyways, that was a lot of name and book dropping.
Keep up the great posts.
dallas
March 5, 2005 9:05 AM
Hello fellow fisherman,
Did you know that 16% of the U.S. population goes fishing at least 16 days a year?
Did you also know that over 75% of the nations fishermen do not fish during "prime time"; fish feeding hours?
Those precious few moments before twilight can be absolutely magical. Even up until 11pm at night, the largest predators of any species feed ravenously.
Don't believe me? Check out Daniel Eggertsen's story, and a picture of a couple of his catches here : "Evening Secrets plus more"
I want you to do me a favor and try it out so I can see what you think of it, and if it works for you as well as it did for me.
You will be one of the first to try it out.
Gone Fishin',
Neil
October 9, 2005 7:51 AM
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