A word on the "kingdom of God" that Jesus often refers to. For a long, long time, my mind just equated "kingdom of God" with "heaven." In the last several years, I have since come to have the opinion that it is an already-present kingdom.
Luke 6:20
"The kingdom of heaven BELONGS to you." (present tense)
6:21
"You WILL BE satisfied." (future tense)
It seems to be a kingdom that has already begun, one that has not yet come to complete fruition, but will. Thoughts?
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Gotta imagine you are on the right track Jake. Here is Matthew 11: 12-14
ReplyDelete12From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it. 13For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. 14And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. 15He who has ears, let him hear.
cool case of scripture interpreting scripture.
-camel
So it started with JtB?
ReplyDeleteI love this concept. Might be my favorite of all the things I've learned from Scripture in the past few years. That "the kingdom" isn't just something we experience when we die, it starts now. When Jesus said "the kingdom of God is near" (Mark 1:15, Luke 10:9,11, etc.) it was because HE had come near. I heard a sermon once about the KoG that used the Lord's Prayer: he said "the Kingdom of God is the place where the will of God is done on earth as it is in heaven." So anytime we practice the will of God - loving our neighbors (or enemies), being generous, basically living out the Gospel in any way - we're seeing the Kingdom of God happen now. As well as hoping for the day (future) when that Kingdom stuff happens all the time, for everyone, because God really is King (Phil 2:9-11).
ReplyDeleteAlso, about JtB, I think the Israelites believed that Elijah was going to come back to announce the arrival of the Messiah (from Malachi 4:5-6). There are lots of parallels between Elijah & JtB (incl. their clothing style & important things like their actual message), and even though JtB denies being Elijah himself in John 1:21, it seems like he's kind of set up as an Elijah-esque guy. Jesus sort of alludes to this in Mark 9, but we haven't gotten there yet, so I won't get too far ahead. Basically, I think Matthew 11 IS saying that JtB sort of announced/inaugurated the arrival of the KoG b/c he announced Jesus' arrival.
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