Joel Green on the kingdom of God, part 4

In a fourth piece on the kingdom of God, Joel Green argues that the kingdom of God is a “master lens through which the nature of reality is disclosed and by which all rival accounts of reality are measured.” It is not a doctrine, it is a way of seeing. That sounds like a very modern notion. Is it likely to help us understand the biblical concept better? I don’t think so. Hermeneutically speaking, I think it’s moving us in the wrong direction.

1. The kingdom of God, Green says, is not a topic within theology but a “theological hermeneutic,” a way of seeing and interpreting the world. It tells us “who the principal actor in history is, what kind of ruler he is, what he is doing in the world, and therefore how human beings are to locate themselves within that world.”

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Historical horizons and prophetic fields of vision
This goes over much of the ground covered in the previous post introducing some of the core ideas in my book In the Form of a God: The Pre-existence of the Exalted Christ in Paul, only this time with audio and moving pictures. Maybe some people will find the visualisation helpful. I’… ( | 1 comment)
In the form of a God: The Pre-existence of the Exalted Christ in Paul: what the book is about and why
My book In the Form of a God: The Pre-existence of the Exalted Christ in Paul has been available for a little while now, from the publisher and other major sources, both in print and as an ebook (Nook, Kindle). ( | 7 comments)
Notes on J. Richard Middleton’s The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1
I am coming to think that the current mainstream view regarding “image of God” in Genesis 1:26-27 is mistaken. The consensus is that behind the expression is the idea that God is king, that he rules the cosmos, and that he has delegated some part of that benign and constructive rule to men and… ( | 4 comments)
Our eco-theological blindspots and the climate crisis
Looking around for discussion of a theology of climate crisis, I came across a brief summary of the work of Gijsbert van den Brink, University Research Chair for Theology and Science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. ( | 2 comments)
Biblical hermeneutics and the destabilising of the world
“It is a conviction of the church,” Matthew Malcolm writes in From Hermeneutics to Exegesis, “that it shares the same redemptive-historical location as the first recipients of the New Testament documents” (61). That is an important observation, but I think that the conviction is misguided… ()
“Image of God” as eco-theological premise?
I argued in the previous post that the injunction to subdue the earth and rule over all living creatures in Genesis 1:26-28 cannot be construed in helpful modern terms as environmental stewardship or creation care. The language consistently evokes contexts of enslavement, violent suppression of… ( | 5 comments)
A mistake to let them subdue the earth and have dominion over it?
There is an argument that the Bible is partly to blame for the current environmental crisis because humanity was instructed from the get-go to subdue the earth and have dominion over all living creatures (Gen. 1:26-28). The historian Lynn White famously argued in a 1967 article, “The Historical… ( | 2 comments)