Joel Green on the kingdom of God, part 3

In his rather short third post on the kingdom of God, Joel Green begins by asking what we can learn about God’s royal rule by examining how the expression is used in the Gospels. He summarises the various contexts: the kingdom of God is entered, proclaimed, possessed, has drawn near, etc. Then he makes the important point that, contrary to much contemporary talk, the kingdom of God does not depend on what people do. “Humans do not create, build, construct, extend, or make present the kingdom. The kingdom is God’s” (emphasis removed).

The conceptual priority given to entrance into the kingdom of God suggests that it must be understood as a “container” or “place,” which makes little sense if the kingdom is “all-pervasive and eternal.” So better to think of it as a sphere or field of divine influence or activity.

Read more...
In the form of a god: Jesus and Dionysus
At the beginning of Euripides’ play Bacchae, the god Dionysus—the god of “wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre,” according to Wikipedia—enters and delivers a monologue. He identifies himself as “son of… ()
Why the gospel was not for the whole world
The New Testament gospel came in two parts—two proclamations distinct from each other with respect to content, audience, and geographical reach.The first proclamation was addressed to Israel. It was that the God of Israel would soon “judge” his unrighteous people and inaugurate a new order under… ( | 6 comments)
God and the chaos monster (and the climate crisis)
There is an argument that there is a third creation account in the Old Testament, in addition to the two creation accounts of Genesis 1-2, in which God as storm deity defeats the chaos monster of the sea in order for dry land to emerge. Dahood, notably, argued that translation of Psalm… ()
A prophet is not without honour...
I was at a fairly mainstream but non-traditional Anglican Church in east London on Sunday—mostly singles and young families. We had a good, thoughtful, and well presented sermon about the offence taken by the people of Nazareth at the wisdom and mighty works of Jesus (Matt. 13:53-58). I tried… ()
Holes in the story: did the crowds turn against Jesus at the end?
Ever wondered why the Jerusalem crowds turned against Jesus so abruptly—cheering him into the city at the start of the week, yelling for him to be crucified at the end of it? Lots of scholars think it all very improbable. We’ll get to that in a moment, but first some reflections on a hermeneutic… ()
How to tell the biblical story in a way that makes a difference: some lessons from Islamic educators
I saw this book in the Al-Faisal Museum for Arab-Islamic Art in Riyadh. It is described as a manuscript that sheds light on the “most important teaching methods employed by scholars and educators of Arab-Islamic civilization.” It’s not dated, but it’s going to be pretty old. The notice with it… ()
Paul’s idea of God’s empire: the limited scope of his gospel
Did Paul proclaim a universal gospel? “Of course he did,” you mutter. Or: “Of course he did, you nutter!” What use is a non-universal gospel?Well, on the train from Jeddah to Medina, I came across this paragraph in Neil Elliott’s Paul the Jew under Roman Rule: Collected Essays (2024): ( | 2 comments)