What on earth is the Kingdom of God? | Bible Feed
Jesus clearly taught about the kingdom coming in the future when he taught his disciples to pray in Matthew 6:9-10. And even beyond his resurrection, this was the disciples expectation, (Acts 1:3-11).
Paul and Dan do consider some passages that describe the Christian as already living under the dominion of Jesus as king, and within his kingdom, (Colossians 1:13, Revelation 1:6-9). But this is clearly not the ultimate fulfilment of the kingdom according to the New Testament writings.
Throughout the episode and towards the end, they give pointers to several other Bible Feed podcast episodes and other resources that relate to this topic:
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What on earth is the Kingdom of God? | Bible Feed
Show Notes
Paul and Dan kickstart a new season of the Bible Feed podcast by explaining the plans for future episodes. They explain that some episodes will be on specific themes that run through the Bible to give an overview of each topic in question, whilst pointing to other resources that can help dig deeper into the topic.How many interpretations of the Kingdom of God?
The theme for this episode is the Kingdom of God. To begin with, Paul and Dan discuss their initial reactions to 8 different views and how they differ and to some extent stand in tension:- The kingdom as future hope: the future kingdom.
- The kingdom as inner spiritual experience: the interior kingdom.
- The kingdom as mystical communion: the heavenly kingdom.
- The kingdom as institutional church: the ecclesiastical kingdom.
- The kingdom as countersystem: the subversive kingdom.
- The kingdom as political state: the theocratic kingdom.
- The kingdom as Christianized culture: the transforming kingdom.
- The kingdom as earthly utopia: the Utopian kingdom. [1]
The Kingdom of God in the Bible
To explore which of these models convey the sense of the kingdom as described in the Bible, they start with Jesus who was preaching that “the Kingdom of God is at hand”, (Mark 1:15). Paul and Dan acknowledge that the crowds who listened to Jesus appear to already have had an understanding of what the kingdom meant to them. This leads them to realise that it is important to look at the Old Testament context when trying to understand this theme.Jesus clearly taught about the kingdom coming in the future when he taught his disciples to pray in Matthew 6:9-10. And even beyond his resurrection, this was the disciples expectation, (Acts 1:3-11).
The Kingdom of God is within you
Before they turn back to the Old Testament to look at the context, Paul and Dan discuss the famous phrase in Luke 17:21, which is translated in the KJV as “the kingdom of God is within you”. This makes is sound like the kingdom is meant to be an experience of the Christian, or a state of salvation that they enter, (“the interior kingdom”). However, Paul notes that most modern versions generally translate this phrase as “the kingdom of God is within your midst”. Since Jesus was God’s appointed king, bringing his rulership into society, it was accurate to say that the “sovereignty” of God was in the midst of the people, because Jesus their king was standing in front of them.Paul and Dan do consider some passages that describe the Christian as already living under the dominion of Jesus as king, and within his kingdom, (Colossians 1:13, Revelation 1:6-9). But this is clearly not the ultimate fulfilment of the kingdom according to the New Testament writings.
The Kingdom of God in the Old Testament
Surprisingly, the phrase does not appear in the Old Testament. However, Paul takes us to example passages in 1 Chronicles 28:5 and 1 Chronicles 29:11 that describe the political kingdom of Israel at the time of David and Solomon as the “Kingdom of the LORD”. In the time of Jesus, there is clearly a connection between the Jewish expectation of a restored kingdom and his preaching that the Kingdom of God is at hand.The multifaceted Kingdom of God
Paul and Dan summarise by considering whether any one of the 8 models of the kingdom seem to fit the biblical data best. However, instead of being able to force the theme into one box, many elements of those 8 models have some aspect of truth to them, even if not directly covered in this overview. Jesus had indeed come to restore the kingdom of Israel, which was God’s own kingdom, but this kingdom was to be something that expanded and included so much more than just a political entity in Israel, including a rule for Christians to live by as they await the most complete fulfillment of God’s kingdom when Jesus comes again.Throughout the episode and towards the end, they give pointers to several other Bible Feed podcast episodes and other resources that relate to this topic:
- Our series on the gospel of Matthew and in particular the episode called “The Kingdom of Heaven”.
- Episode 33 “Where is heaven?”
- Our blog “Blessed are the poor in spirit” identifies possible elements of how Jesus’ teaching of the kingdom was subversive without being violent.
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