The Kingdom -- Final Thoughts

This is going to be my last videocast before we began to replay some of the mind change moments we've done over the last four years. I was in graduate school and beginning to grow long sideburns while wearing bell bottom pants in 1971 when I first picked up a copy of John Bright’s classic book, The Kingdom of God. It strikes me now that I was all most through a Master’s program in theology, but had heard almost nothing about Jesus’ concept of the kingdom.

Looking back I find it amazing that this message on the kingdom which now almost all scholars agree with Jesus main message received virtually no attention. I found the book intriguing, but I don't remember allowing it to affect me in that great of a way.

Three years later I would buy a copy of George Eldon Ladd's massive volume titled Theology of the New Testament. He begins his discussion of Jesus' message with a lengthy section on the kingdom of God, seeing it as the key to understanding what Jesus was all about. This time I was affected in a big way.

This was followed by a reading of John Howard Yoder's recently published book The Politics of Jesus. Though I now know I probably didn't understand half that he said, his teaching on the kingdom combined with that of Ladd's was helping me to enlarge my view of the kingdom and see it as much more than just the church – a common understanding among those of us raised in what is been called The Restoration Movement.

But I see now that I was still not connecting a lot of the dots. I was teaching and practicing concepts of discipleship that very much fit with the message of the kingdom, but was not in many cases seeing the relationship between the two.  I was very much taken by things I was learning about the contrast between the world's wisdom and God's wisdom, and I was seeing that as a theme that ran through Scripture. But I again I didn't see how closely all of this was tied in to the message of the kingdom.

Ten years ago when I wrote a book on Jesus titled No One like Him, I included a chapter on the kingdom, the kingdom attitudes, and the kingdom life and my view of how many things fit together seem to be maturing.

However, it was three years ago when Lee Camp’s book Mere Discipleship lit a fire within me to really explore what Jesus meant by the kingdom and how it relates to everything else the New Testament teaches and to every aspect of our lives. Lee would later give input on the book we would write.

I've been joined in this study and on this journey by others, including my good friend, Steve Brown, who is co-writing with me what we hope will be a three-volume series on the kingdom.  

As I look back on my own experience, I'm reminded of how right something is that I said right at the beginning when I first began to teach some new lessons on the kingdom a little more than two years ago. I said you may never have used some of the terminology that were going to use and you may never have understood some of the things in Scripture that were going to talk about but that doesn't mean you aren’t on the Kingdom and haven't been living a kingdom life.

I went on to say that if you get up every morning just wanting to live with Jesus as Lord, you’re in the kingdom your living the life the kingdom. But, then I went on to say, “but with all going to enjoy the kingdom so much more and were going to be able to live it  so much more if we understand even more of what God has in mind.”

But this weekend I was reminded of something else that I have said almost every time I teach, and that is that is exciting and challenging as I have found kingdom teaching to be, I have found that it is a deep well and there's always so much more to be learning and how in our fellowship with each other we can be helping each other to learn so much more. I was in another city and didn't get home till 12:30 AM. An elder in my congregation and I were conducting a workshop focused on three themes Kingdom, Disciple and Church.

After the first two messages one member of the leadership team in this congregation, who works as a physical fitness trainer, asked me if I had read a book titled Jesus--the Jewish Theologian. I had to admit I had not heard of it. He said “I think you would enjoy it,” so I made a note. However, on Sunday, my new friend brought me his copy of the book and said, ”Here I want you to have this.”

As I ate breakfast this morning, I began to browse through it. Certain passages caught my attention, and I found myself riveted to certain ideas about the kingdom that were new to me. Indeed the well is deep and I have more to learn.

 But I want to end these videocasts by saying something I probably said before. As exciting as I think the concept of the kingdom of God can be and the way it amazingly ties together so many things in Scripture, none of that really matters unless we put it into practice. In our book we talk about seven things the kingdom is in the New Testament and the last one is it is a life to be lived. I believe we need to study it. I believe our thinking needs to be straight about the kingdom because wrong ideas about it have led to many wrong things. However, it's when we began to do God's will on Earth as it is in heaven that we become the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and begin to make a huge difference in people's lives.

So, let's keep studying and learning.

Let”s keep on receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

Let’s allow more and more waves of it to keep coming into our lives

Let's keep tasting the powers of the coming age.

Let's keep appreciating God's amazing plan and the servant King who came to fulfill it.

But finally. Let’s not just listen to the word but put it into practice.

May God bless you as you keep praying, “Your Kingdom come!”