The Kingdom of God

What is the goal of all of this?  Where was Jesus headed?  If we are to offer grace as God offered grace, if we are to love in a way that aligns with the Cross, if we are to be just in a way that frees the chains of the poor, how does that fit with the message of the gospel, the message that Jesus came to preach, the core of the message found in the New Testament?

The core of that message can be found in the phrase ‘The Kingdom of God’ – but, as Christian persons who often claim to know about the teachings of the New Testament, we very seldom focus on this central concept.  Why is that?  Why do we find ourselves so ignorant of the central idea that Jesus came emphasizing? In this episode we try to hone in on this concept so that we might find out what the phrase means, and why it matters to us as we try to live lives in the shape of Jesus.

Texts:

• David P. Gushee & Glenn H. Stassen, Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context, 2nd Edition, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2016 (ISBN: 978-0-8028-7421-4).
• J. Andrew Kirk, Good News of the Kingdom Coming: The Marriage of Evangelism and Social Responsibility, InterVarsity Press, 1983 (ISBN: 978-0877849384).
• Stephen Charles Mott, Biblical Ethics and Social Change. Second Edition, Oxford University Press, 2011 (ISBN: 978-0199739370).
• Howard A. Snyder, Models of the Kingdom,  Wipf and Stock, 2001 (ISBN: 978-1579107017).

Readings:

• ‘Jesus Began to Proclaim: The Reign of God’, Gushee & Stassen, Chapter 1
• ‘Why the Tide Has Turned’, Kirk, Chapter 3
• ‘The Long March of God’, Mott, Chapter 5
• 'Models of the Kingdom: Sorting Out the Practical Meaning of God's Reign', Snyder (https://www.jstor.org/stable/43052383)

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