We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
5 Distinctions of God’s Kingdom
Jesus said that his kingdom was “not from this world,” for it contrasts with the kingdom of the world in every possible way. This is not a simple contrast between good and evil. The contrast is rather between two fundamentally different ways of doing life, two fundamentally different mindsets and belief systems, two fundamentally different loyalties.
Here are 5 basic contrasts:
A contrast of trusts
The kingdom of the world trusts the power of the sword, while the kingdom of God trusts the power of the cross.
A contrast of aims
The kingdom of the world seeks to control behavior, while the kingdom of God seeks to transform lives from the inside out. Also, the kingdom of the world is rooted in preserving, if not advancing, one’s self-interests and one’s own will, while the kingdom of God is centered exclusively on carrying out God’s will, even if this requires sacrificing one’s own interests.
A contrast of scopes
The kingdom of the world is intrinsically tribal in nature, and is heavily invested in defending, if not advancing, one’s own people-group, one’s nation, one’s ethnicity, one’s state, one’s religion, one’s ideologies, or one’s political agendas. That is why it is a kingdom characterized by perpetual conflict. The kingdom of God, however, is intrinsically universal, for it is centered on simply loving as God loves. The kingdom-of-God participant has by love transcended the tribal and nationalistic parameters of whatever version of the kingdom of the world they find themselves in.
A contrast of responses
The kingdom of the world is intrinsically a tit-for-tat kingdom; its motto is “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” In this fallen world, no version of the kingdom of the world can survive for long by loving its enemies and blessing those who persecute it; it carries the sword, not the cross. But kingdom-of-God participants carry the cross, not the sword. We, thus, aren’t ever to return evil with evil, violence with violence. We are rather to manifest the unique kingdom of Christ by returning evil with good. Far from seeking retaliation, we seek the well-being of our “enemy.”
A contrast of battles
The kingdom of the world has earthly enemies and, thus fights earthly battles; the kingdom of God, however, by definition has no earthly enemies, for its disciples are committed to love “their enemies,” thereby treating them as friends.
—Adapted from The Myth of a Christian Nation, pages 46-48
Photo credit: theilr via Visual Hunt / CC BY-SA
Category: General
Tags: Kingdom Living, Kingdom of God, Kingdom of this World, Nationalism
Topics: Following Jesus
Related Reading
Sermon Clip: Dear Abby
In this short sermon clip, Greg Boyd discusses Matthew 7. The infamous “plank in your own eye vs a speck of dust in your neighbors. He clarifies what this verse means when you have a close friend with an issue that you are helping them with. In the full sermon of Heart Smart our team…
Enemy Love
Rob Hogeslag via Compfight Zack Hunt over at The American Jesus shared the story of Paul Keane who offered his own burial plot to Tamerlan Tsarnaev if his family could not find a cemetery that would accept his body. You’ll remember that Tsarnaev was one of the men who carried out the Boston Marathon bombings and…
The Kingdom Stance Toward Enemies
Jesus was praying in the garden of Gethsemane, when a group of temple guards showed up to arrest him. Peter immediately drew his sword and started swinging it, cutting off a guard’s ear. From the world’s point of view, this violence was justified. Peter was simply defending himself and his master. Yet Jesus rebuked him,…
The Cosmic Scope of Spiritual Warfare
Yesterday’s post briefly introduced the reality that we live in the midst of spiritual warfare. This is the reality of being a part of creation where Satan prowls like a roaring lion (1 Pet 5:8-9). The Scriptures make it clear that all of creation is in need of redemption. While most Christians assume that the…
Prayer Matters
Martin Sharman via Compfight Jesus taught us to pray in a way that recognizes that God’s will isn’t manifested in evil; it’s manifested when he and his people revolt against it. Jesus tells us that the cry of our heart is to be for God’s kingdom to come and his will to be done “on…
Introducing “TribeNet”
Hello Kingdom people, For years I’ve heard on a regular basis from individuals and small groups/house churches who wanted to know if there are others in their area that share their vision of a Jesus-looking God raising up a Jesus-looking people to transform the world in a Jesus kind of way. Along the same lines,…