All right, dear readers, I’m wanting to work on understanding better the kingdom of God. So let me hear from you: what is the kingdom of God? How would you describe it/define it? How can we see it in the world today?
Tell me about the kingdom of God.
“Our God reigns!” Ps 96:10; 97:1; 98:6
Before he was coronated King of All Things, Jesus of Nazareth, the last King of the Jews, offered his apprentices a metaphor to explain who he was and what he was up to. “The kingdom of the heavens,” he said, “is similar to a bit of yeast which a woman took and hid in half a bushel of dough. After a while all the dough was pervaded by it.”
I think the kingdom of God is simply the direct rule of God — where what God wills is what actually happens (Mt 6:10).
Jesus, and his mentor-cousin John, were not announcing the existence of the kingdom of God. That’d be like a newspaper running on tomorrow’s headline, “Washington beats Cornwallis! British defeated!” Rather, they are announcing the availability of the kingdom/rule of God to men. Now, FINALLY, humanity could actually defect from self-serving and self-destruction, and throw their lot in with God.
Dallas Willard writes, “So when Jesus directs us to pray, ‘Thy kingdom come,’ he does not mean we should pray for it to come into existence. Rather, we pray for it to take over at all points in the personal, social, and political order where it is now excluded: ‘On earth as it is in heaven.’ With this prayer we are invoking it as in faith we are acting it, into the real world of our daily existence.
Jesus said when we’re born again, of water and the spirit, we become part of the Kingdom of God. How can horrible, sinful, IMperfect beings be part of something that is perfect? I guess that is one of the greatest miracles of all time. :)
Sorry that’s not much of a physical description or definition.
Thanks Nick. Those are good thoughts.
And Lisa, I’m not looking for anything in particular right now. All thoughts are welcome.
The Divine Conspiracy, Willard’s exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, remains my favorite book specifically on the kingdom of God.