Jeff Hardin, Dept of Zoology, UW-Madison•
327 Zoology Res Bldg •
phone 262-9634 • jdhardin@wisc.edu • 9/12/03
A.
What
Do We Mean by a “Kingdom”?
•The Kingdom of God is something we don't hear much about today
1. Introduction: The red pill or the blue pill?
In a day like this, wonderful
yet fearful, men are asking questions. What does it all mean? Where are we
going? … Men are concerned today not only about the individual and the destiny
of his soul but also about the meaning of history itself. Does mankind have a
destiny? Or do we jerk across the stage of time like wooden puppets, only to
have the stage, the actors, and the theatre itself destroyed by fire, leaving
only the a pile of ashes and the smell of smoke? - George Eldon Ladd, The Gospel of
the Kingdom, pp. 13-14
2. Matt. 6:33: The "prime directive"
Jesus taught that a disciple has to make his
relationship to God the dominating concentration of his life, and to be
carefully careless about everything else in comparison to that. - Oswald Chambers, My
Utmost for His Highest, meditation for May 21st
3. What is a “kingdom”? The rank, quality, state, or
attributes of a king; royal authority; dominion; monarchy; kingship. Archaic – Webster’s unabridged
dictionary
For Jesus the kingdom was a reign more than a
realm, a power more than a place
B. What Did Jesus Have to Say About the Kingdom of God?
•The Kingdom of God is the dominant theme in Jesus' preaching
1. Jesus mentions
“kingdom of God” or kingdom of heaven” (Matthew) about 80 times!
2. The kingdom
backdrop: the Jewish expectation at the time of Christ (Daniel, 1 Enoch, intertestamental period)
3. The kingdom
defined…
a. in
the future, after Christ returns (e.g., Matt 25: 1-13; Mark 10:30)
b. but
it’s also “at hand” (Mark 1:15)
...the New Testament has
introduced what we might call a significant change of tense. - John Bright, The Kingdom of God, p. 197.
c. it
has already beaten Satan (Matt. 12:23-29; Luke 10:18)
d. a “secret” (Matt. 13:11): “the
secret thoughts, plans, and dispensations of God which are hidden from the
human reason…and hence must be revealed for whom they are intended..”
– Bauer, Arndt and Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon, 8th ed.
The mystery of the Kingdom is
this: The Kingdom of God is here but not with irresistible power.
–
George Eldon Ladd, The Gospel of the Kingdom, p. 56.
i. Parables about the secret: mustard seeds &
yeast (Matthew 13:31-35)
ii. Parables about the secret: seeds have their
own growth program (Mark 4:26-29)
e.
supremely important (Matt. 13:44-46;
Luke 9:62)
f. not
an earthly kingdom (John 18:36-37)
4. The kingdom is
odd: “now, but not yet”! (Matt. 6:9-13)
5. The king is odd:
a suffering servant (Luke 4:17-21; Matt 11:2-6; see Phil 2)
C. What Does the Kingdom of God Mean for Christians?
• The Kingdom of God assumes there are subjects.
1. According to Jesus, kingdom subjects…
a.
experience eternal life now (Matt.
19:16-24; John 3:3,5; 3:36; 5:24; 17:3; see also 1 John 5:11-12)
When Mickey Mantle was dying
of disease brought on by a life of heavy drinking, he said that he would have
taken better care of himself had he only known how long he was going to live.
He gives us a profound lesson. How should we “take care of ourselves” when we
are never to cease?
- Dallas Willard, The
Divine Conspiracy, p. 86
b. are
a blessed community of the poor and broken who are salty (Matt 5:1-16)
c. live
by a new ethic, in which the external and internal are consistent (Matt
5:21-7:28)
d. live
via the “great inversion” (Matt 19:30; 23:11; see John 13:14-17; Phil 2)
The ineffable glory of the Son
of Man and of the victorious saints of God is to be reached through the doorway
of the cross of the servant. – John Bright, The
Kingdom of God, p. 214.
The exclusion of the weak and
insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from a Christian community may
actually mean the exclusion of Christ; in the poor brother Christ is knocking
at the door - Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, Life
Together, Ch. 1, “Community”
e. are caught in an essential tension
D. What Difference Should the Kingdom Make at this University?
1. It should make us humble:
Sometimes the places where
God's effective or actual rule is not yet carried out...lie within the lives
and little kingdoms of those who truly have been invaded by the eternal kind of
life itself. - Dallas Willard, The
Divine Conspiracy, p. 30.
The seemingly insignificant
acts of daily life are the tests of eternity, because they prove what spirit
possesses us. – Andrew Murray, Humility,
Ch. 6
2. It should make us realistic:
Christianity…does not think
this is a war between independent powers… it is a civil war, a rebellion, and
that we are in a part of the universe occupied by the rebel. Enemy occupied
territory – that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the
rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us
all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. - C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book ii, Ch. 2, “The Invasion”.
3. It should make us hopeful:
Hope is one of the Theological
virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is
not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but
one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are the
leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the
Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought
most of the next…all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds
were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think
of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this, Aim at Heaven
and you will get earth “thrown in”: aim at earth and you will get neither.
- C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book iii, Chapter 10, “Hope”.
4. It should make us communal:
To be resident but alien is a formula for loneliness
that few of us can sustain…Christians can survive only by supporting one
another through the countless small acts through which we tell one another we
are not alone, that God is with us. Friendship is not, therefore, accidental to
the Christian life.
-Stanley
Hauerwas and William Willimon,
Resident Aliens, p. 12
5. It should make us courageous
6. It should make us different
a. spiritually: are we devoted subjects of the King?
b academically: do we pursue our disciplines in glory to the King?
c. relationally: are we ambassadors for the King?
Why is God landing in this
enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to
undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? … Well,
Christians think he is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can
guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side
freely. - C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book II, Ch. 5.
Questions for Further
Discussion
1. In what sense do you
feel you are "between two worlds" as a Christian at the university?
2. How do you see
yourself, as C. S. Lewis put, as "God's saboteur"? Is it possible for
you to work for God's kingdom right where you are? Why or why not?
3. Read Luke 18:18-30.
Jesus has a heart for the young ruler, and asks him to follow Him, after he
gives up that which stands in the way of his full devotion to God. What do you
think Jesus might ask about if the conversation were with a young academician
at UW-Madison? How about someone in mid-career?
Further Reading
• Bonhoeffer,
Dietrich, 1963. The
Cost of Discipleship, New York, Collier.
• Bright, John. 1953. The Kingdom of God. Nashville, Abingdon Press.
• Godawa,
Brian, 2002. Hollywood Worldviews:
Watching Films with Wisdom & Discernment. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
• Hauerwas,
Stanley and Willimon, William, 1983. Resident Aliens. Nashwille,
Abingdon Press.
• Ladd,
George Eldon, 1959 (reprinted 2003). The Gospel of the Kingdom. Grand Rapids,
Eerdmans.
• Lewis, C.S. , 1979 (many other printings!). Mere Christianity. New York, Macmillan.
• Lewis, C.S. The Weight of
Glory and Other Addresses. New York, Simon & Schuster.
• Willard, Dallas, 1998.
The Divine Conspiracy. SanFrancisco, HarperSanFrancisco.