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.”

Read more...
Where Witherington finds Wright least convincing
Ben Witherington has been doing a thorough and informative series of posts on N.T. Wright’s new/forthcoming book Paul and His Recent Interpreters, starting here—in itself a good overview of recent Pauline scholarship. I haven’t been tracking with it too closely (I have been… ( | 13 comments)
Telling our story (all of it)
Last week I went with my friend Steve Knight to see Hamlet at the Barbican. Hamlet is a tragedy. By the end of the play everyone of any dramatic importance is dead. The old king has had a “leperous distilment” poured in his ear. Polonius is stabbed in error behind the arras. Rosencrantz and… ( | 1 comment)
Narrative, a Jewish Jesus, and early high Christology
I heard Rikk Watts from Regent College, Vancouver, talk this week to a group of church leaders about what’s currently going on in theology. He began with some good reflections on the challenges facing anyone trying to keep track of developments across the ever-expanding—or ever more boggy—field of… ( | 5 comments)
Why the end of the world is the end of the world
What happens at the end? What sort of transformation does John have in mind when he says that earth and heaven “fled away” from the presence of God at the judgment of all the dead (Rev. 20:11)? Are we to suppose that the world-as-we-know-it must finally disappear—or perhaps be destroyed—to be… ( | 42 comments)
Who says that this prophecy has two referents?
It is often argued that biblical prophecies may have two or more frames of reference. For example, Middleton allows that the language of cosmic dissolution in Jesus’ apocalyptic discourse (sun and moon darkened, stars falling from heaven) may refer to events leading up to the war against Rome and… ( | 5 comments)
The widow of Zarephath, Naaman the Syrian, and the redemption of the world
One of the ways the evangelical church is attempting to correct the traditional notion that salvation has to do with individuals going to heaven when they die is to affirm instead the idea of salvation as the redemption of creation. J. Richard Middleton’s book, A New Heaven and a… ( | 5 comments)
J. Richard Middleton on salvation and the restoration of all things
Who or what is saved? And how does salvation fit into the biblical story? In his book A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology J. Richard Middleton argues against an old model which defines salvation as a personal journey towards an otherworldly destiny:… ( | 3 comments)