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 WHAT IS THE KINGDOM OF GOD? The kingdom of God is an idea that is central to Jesus's teaching and his life. He announced the coming of the kingdom and called upon his followers to work and pray towards that end. So what does it mean? "The kingdom of God" is not a phrase Jesus invented. Jewish revolutionaries at the time wanted to throw off imperial Roman rule and get rid of the monarchy, so that there would be no king but God. Many of Jesus's followers seem to have assumed that he had the same manifesto. But Jesus clearly had no interest in taking on the Roman army. He called for the people of Israel to become "one nation under God" even under its oppression by Rome, and for his followers to make a start by being a holy community. For Jesus, the kingdom of God seems to have been more about God ruling in our lives than about who rules the country, and this is one reason why his teaching has made sense around the world – it applies equally to everyone everywhere. In practice, it was a mix of personal spiritual life – such as praying, forgiving, giving, holiness – and social change – such as a new attitude to the excluded, to women, to foreigners and to the poor. "Now and not yet" is a phrase often used to describe Jesus's attitude to the kingdom. In one sense he was proclaiming its arrival: the kingdom was coming now through his own life and work, and that of his followers. But there is also a strong sense that he saw the kingdom not only as something that we would always be working towards, but something that would only be fully realised in the world to come. More questions about Jesus' teaching |
Picture: 19th-century Bible illustration. |
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