BibleProject - The Kingdom of God Part 1: The Kingdom of God Is the Gospel, starting from Genesis 1

Episode Date: November 4, 2015

In this episode, Tim and Jon look at a key Biblical theme that traces throughout the entire Bible––the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is central to Jesus’ message, but it can be confusing to understand completely. The guys will discuss why Jesus talked about the Kingdom so much and what that should mean to us as Jesus followers. Before they dive into the discussion, Tim will give a brief explanation of the concept of the Kingdom and its introduction into Scripture in Genesis 1. In the first part of the episode (01:05-07:00), Tim and Jon talk about Jesus’ message in the Gospels. The New Testament authors boiled down Jesus’ message to, “repent, for the Kingdom of God is near.” We tend to think of Jesus as a moral teacher, but his lessons on morality and love only make sense if the Kingdom of God and his reign are coming to change the world. In the next part of the episode (07:20-14:02), the guys talk about what it means for the reign of God to arrive in Jesus. The image of God is an idea in Scripture that is connected to this Kingdom, and both of these ideas are anchored in Genesis 1. In the final part of the episode (14:24-29:18), the guys look at what it means for God’s Kingdom to be seen through humans. Psalm 8 is a poetic reflection on Genesis 1 and humanity’s role in God’s creation. God rules the world through humans, and human rule is tied to being made in God’s image. Video: This episode is designed to accompany our video called, “Gospel of the Kingdom." You can view it on our youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmFPS0f-kzs Scripture References: Genesis 1 Psalm 8 Show Music: Defender Instrumental by Rosasharn Music Blue Skies by Unwritten Stories Flooded Meadows by Unwritten Stories

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode. And this episode of the Bible Project podcast,

Tim and I are gonna be dialoging about a theme in the Bible that begins at the very beginning of scripture and goes all the way to the end. And it's a theme that's central to Jesus' message. in the Bible that begins at the very beginning of scripture, goes all the way to the end. And it's a theme that's central to Jesus' message, but it's incredibly difficult for us to understand. As well, I should say, at least for me to understand, it's the theme of the Kingdom of God. This dialogue was super helpful for me and wrapping my mind around why that was so central to Jesus' message and what

it should mean to me if I'm trying to follow Jesus. We broke this up into three parts in this first part. Tim introduces the concept of the Kingdom of God and shows us how it is staring us in the face in Genesis chapter 1. One of the most interesting little mental exercises to do is to ask yourself, if I tried to boil down everything I know about what Jesus has ever said, if I had to summarize it in one sentence, we're thinking of one saying or teaching that is the essence of what I think he taught, what would that be? Right, so what would it be?

Well, you tell me, it's much, much like what I've done it before. Yeah, we just did this. We already went through this exercise. But I said, love your neighbor is what I said. Yes. Love your neighbor, popular number one. Yeah. Coming in at a hot second would be like the golden rule.

Do you want to others as you would have them do to you? Yep. Um, maybe, you know, somebody who's really passionate about social justice might think of love your enemies, forgive them, pray for them, that kind of thing. Someone who deals with anxiety like me, I always go to do not worry. For some reason that one feels like an important... Yeah, birds don't worry about other foods.

Yeah, so why should you? So here's what's interesting about that is that how I summarize what I think is the main message or teaching of Jesus tells me a lot about who I think Jesus was. And so in contrast to that is an interesting fact that three of the four accounts of Jesus' life and the New Testament, the Gospels, according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they summarize the whole message of Jesus for us

in the first sentence that they put in his mouth when he comes onto the public scene in each of those Gospels. And that summary sentence is repent for the kingdom of God is here or it has arrived. So from the gospel author's point of view, the moral teachings of Jesus love your neighbor, the scandalous moral teachings, forgive your enemies, that kind of thing. Those are not the essence of Jesus' message.

Those are subordinate to some larger, more important idea. Those behaviors only make sense in light of some bigger thing. And that bigger thing is that the kingdom of God is here. And so would you say because the gospel authors summarize it as the kingdom of God is here or near? What do they say here or near? Near or has arrived. memorize it as the king of God is here or near. What are they saying here or near? Near. Near has arrived. Has arrived.

Kind of the way I like to paraphrase it. That since they're doing that, that's how a Christ follower should look. Yeah, I think. Yeah, so we tend to, by those summaries, think of Jesus primarily as a moral teacher. The gospels are interested in portraying Jesus as a prophet in line with Israel's prophets who was announcing and heralding the great day of God's justice and salvation.

Do you think that we don't emphasize that because we just don't understand? I mean, it's a lot harder to understand this idea of the kingdom of God, how that ties into all this prophecy. I mean, it's really dense. Yeah, it's a foreign narrative to us, you know? So we in the West have a grand narrative of like moral progress.

Really, I mean, that's the driving narrative of the Western world, the moral progress. So we like to tie Jesus into that where we can. But Jesus' grand narrative was about the covenant story of God in Israel and the world coming to its climax in himself and the arrival of the kingdom. And that's weird. And because kingdom and prophecy has an American Christianity mostly been dominated by end of the world left behind. Weirdness that we don't know what to do with this part of who Jesus is. Yeah, that makes sense. And that's why I like this project so much is it's going back and saying, okay, what is this?

Kind of crazy story. Mm-hmm. Well, it's unfamiliar to us. We get feedback that the word crazy is not. It's bad word to use. We like to use it. It's unfamiliar, surprising, strange story. And so this idea of God's kingdom. That's that that's one of the

strangest things for Yeah, we don't you know other than I mean there are still kingdoms in the world today But they're mostly kind of you know the United Kingdom Britain Okay, Queen. Yeah, okay in the prince and princess and that kind of thing But for the most part their archaic of prints and princess and that kind of thing. But for the most part, there are cake, survivors from earlier era,

some in history. So kingdom and kings isn't a social reality for most westerners and for most of the modern world. So we think of democracy, not kings. And so the word is foreign in its imagery. And then the story, the biblical story that Jesus sees himself fulfilling is also foreign to us because it's not our grand narrative But so the whole point is that for Jesus

He summarized his message the kingdom of God is what Jesus talked about more than any other topic hands down So just in the Gospel of Matthew alone, Jesus mentions the kingdom over 50 times, which is 1.5 times per page of the 28 chapter at Gospel of Matthew. So it's clearly that's what he dominated. That was the dominating theme of his teaching.

So if we want to understand who Jesus is and who he sees himself as, we need to learn what this term meant and how it fits into the story of the Bible. The English word kingdom, if you look like an dictionary, it primarily refers to a place. And the Greek and Hebrew words, Greek Basilea and Hebrew Malkut refers to an activity, an action, or an English refers to a place. In English it refers to a place, the biblical term, Old Testament and New Testament refers primarily to an action that includes a place. So here's how I say in the notes here that in Bible it refers to an action that includes a place. So here's how I say in the notes here that in Bible it refers to an action the rule or the reign of a king over his people. Which is going to be somewhere. So like your kingdoming someone? Yeah, or I actually think the verbs rule or we have the noun in English, the rain of a king.

Right. Which obviously it has to take place somewhere. So by saying the rain of a king is the same thing as saying the kingdom of a king. In the Bible, yes. Or the word kingdom has to stuck with us from older English, from the King James. Right. And tindale before him, and that noun has just stuck in the English translations over time.

But the biblical word refers to the activity of the King reigning over his people. So when Jesus says the King of God is here, you could translate that the reign of God is here. Correct. And the importance is that, especially because Matthew was the first gospel in the New Testament, the frequent phrase in Matthew is the kingdom of heaven, which Jesus uses synonymously with the kingdom of God. Heaven is just a paraphrase.

Because it's talking about God's reign or the reign of heaven. But the problem in the history of Western interpretation has been because Kingdom of Heaven is what people read first in the New Testament. They think of it as a place. Yeah, because heaven is a place. Heaven is God's space from the cloud somewhere. And so there's a kingdom up there. There's a kingdom up there and it's arriving here. And that's, uh, yeah, I mean, that's not too far from the idea, but it's more talking about there is a plate, there's God's space where God is king and where everything... There's a reality in which God reigns. There's a reality in which God reigns and There's a reality in which God reigns, and where everything that is done is God's will.

And the story of the Bible as it goes on, the earth has become a place where God's will is not done because we assert our will over it and God's allowed us to do that. And so Jesus is announcing the arrival of God's reign to take back his world from us. That's at least phase one. It's not quite as simple as that, but- Phase one meaning- Well, sorry, no we're getting- Idea one.

Idea one, yeah. So there you go. Kingdom in the Bible refers to an activity primarily. It assumes a place, right? So if a king is reigning, he's reigning over some people somewhere. That's kind of the idea is taken for granted in the Hebrew thought. Yeah. Whereas in English, it refers, we think of a place as opposed to the person and the way that the person is re. The word kingdom, and what is that Latin dumb? What's dumb, even mean? Hmm, dumb, the Latin root, dumb. Try to. Well, on Wictionary, it forms a noun that denotes

the condition, power, dominion, authority, or state from proto-dramatic domas. Domas. Ah, so forming nouns that denote a conditioner state, boredom, freedom, martyreddom, stardom. Okay, so a state of the kingdom. So forming nouns that denote the domain or jurisdiction, chrysendum, fifdom, kingdom.

So those are the two main ones, a condition or a domain. Domain kind of speaks to land. Yeah, exactly. Geography, whereas... In addition, the condition. But that's what you're speaking to as a condition. Yeah, in Bible, it's referring to a condition or a state of activity. So boredom, boredom is a state of being bored.

Kingdom is a state of being ruled, a state of being under someone's rule. Yeah. If you're in the kingdom, if you are bringing the kingdom, you are reigning. You're bringing the rule. You're bringing the rule. Yes. So some of my favorite New Testament scholars on this whole topic are T France or NT Wright or a German guy. You're a meas. They translate it as the rule of God or the reign of God has arrived.

And I think that's helpful. It just twists it in English a little bit to make it fresh. And then it gets you asked a question, what does it mean for a Jewish prophet to come onto the scene two thousand years ago saying the rule of God has arrived. Right. Has God not been ruling? Well, and it helped. It's helpful because it's a word we still use.

It's a word we still use. To rule. I don't go around really talking about kingdoms. Yeah. You need to even rule a reign. It's not like you wouldn't, like a manager. Doesn't reign the office. Who's in charge here?

Who's in charge here? We would say who's in charge? Who's the boss? Yep, yep. So NT writes paraphrases running the show. Or yeah, in charge. And Cup. Yeah.

So which just begs a bunch of questions. So what does it mean for the reign of God to arrive in Jesus? Right. And how would a Jewish person perceive that? That's right. And so there, I think, we have to go back to just the biblical story. And the kingdom of God is one of these themes

that runs from page one to the very last page, literally from page one to the second to last paragraph of the Bible. Nice. So it gives us a little bit of... This is truly a theme that runs... It's clean through. Yeah.

The Bible. Yeah. A good Bible trivia fact, great at parties to know. What's the first time? Where's the first time that the word rule or rain or anything to do with a king or raining? Appears in the Bible. Yeah. I guess I've already given it away.

You have, but if I hadn't looked at your notes, I probably would have guessed. I'm looking at your notes though now. I'm, it's ruined. It's ruined. Sorry. There's one more Bible trivia fact that I won't reveal to you yet. So yeah, where in the Bible is the first time the idea of ruling or reigning appears, page

one, or in some Bibles the way the page might be formatted, page two. And it's closely connected to the image of God. So the idea of reigning is. The idea of reigning. Yeah, so God makes a really good world full of potential. It's exploding with potential in life. And near the culmination of Genesis 1 is the famous line. God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created. Him, male and female, he created them. God blessed them, said to them, be fruitful, and increase the number, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, every other living creature that moves on the

ground. So that word rule, it's one of the standard Hebrew words for what kings do, to rule or to reign. It's not the word kingdom. It's not the word kingdom. No, but it's so in studying biblical themes, you need to be sensitive to not just assuming. Not do word studies. Yeah, yeah, theme studies are distinct from word studies. Yeah, so an idea can be represented by lots of different words, or even metaphors, so the idea can be present. even if the word kingdom kind of means the verb rule. That's right. There's another word that also means rule.

Yes. There's multiple, there's probably about three different verbs that describe the act of ruling or reigning as a king, and they all have different nuances. But this one has to do with ruling, having an authority to oversee and to steward and manage. Does it have kind of kingly connotations? Yes, so yeah, that's why the word rule, it's a great translation because you just say rule, you know, who uses that word? Right. Like, that's not what your boss does at Subway.

It doesn't rule the place. Or so that's a verb. Even in English that we think of someone in a state of governing authority, that's what we use the word rule for. And that's similar here. So it's depicting humans as having some royal task. And that connects back to the image of God. So here's the big question. Do we do a quick movement on the image of God in this video?

If we did that before, we did that quickly. We did that quickly. But this would be to bring out a different nuance of it. So, that's Genesis 1. Did we ever talk about just doing a video on Image of God? Yeah, you know, I thought so, and then I looked in our theme videos. Well, I know it's on the list, but I think we had discussed it before. Yeah, we had. I think, it actually will be wrapped up in the new humanity. Oh, right. I think we're doing something on new humanity.

Right. Isn't that one? Yeah. So that will be that one. So when you say it's a royal task, I mean, I don't even really understand royalty and kingdoms that well. But it seems like that had a certain very special meaning royal.

Yes. Yes, it does. Yes, so let's look at Psalm 8 and then let's think about the image of God and then this all comes together in a really, I think, profound way. So Psalm 8 is a poetic reflection on Genesis 1 and specifically humanity's role in the world. So Psalm 8, verse 4for begins with this line, what is mankind that you are mindful of him,

what's humanity that you care for him? You've made him a little lower than the angels, which is pretty awesome. So that's reflecting on this. Human beings are made out of dirt, so we're earthlings, literally. But there's also something transcendent or sacred, right? So the biologists call this what, emerging an emergent form, something? This is physics, an emergent form, where in evolutionary development, there are these leaps that happen where the complexity of a form

isn't reducible to any one cause, but to multiple factors and it's a new entity. It's not just... A lot of people think of consciousness that way. That's right, exactly right. So, and it doesn't mean we can't trace the development, but it does mean at some point it stops being a whole bunch of the things from the previous stage and it is a new genuine thing in its own right. So, what am I talking about?

Yeah, that because we're dust, but there's something else there. There's something other there. There's something other other than dust about humans Yeah, so in Genesis one that's reflected that this image of God in Genesis 2 It's called the divine breath that animates the humans right, but it's this the humans are a mix of heaven and earth The bite would be the Bible's way of talking about it And so they're crowned and notice immediately it goes they're crowned with glory and honor You made them rulers over the works of your hands and everything so crowned I mean, yes crowned and rulers

So here's the under your feet. That's a very royal and your feet. Yeah, that's right Yeah, it's about being on a throne with Having like a foot stool or image image of, again, of authority. Right. So here's within the narrative world of Genesis 1, God is the creator king. He speaks things happen. He makes a people who are going to live under his reign. He makes these people in a certain way and gives them a unique role. He makes these people in a certain way and gives them a unique role. They are the image of God. And traditionally in Western history, image of God has been studied as some trait that makes humans unique for animals, for different ethics or... ...ability to forgive, relationship, or covenant, or the intellect, consciousnesslec consciousness like that.

So by far the consensus in biblical studies, like you read commentaries, is that the meaning of the image of God is anchored one in Genesis 1 in the way the sentence is put together, but two in its ancient Near Eastern context. I don't know if we have time to go into this, but it's interesting. Then God said, let us make humanity in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea. So in Hebrew, there's no periods. So let's take out that period. Let us make humans in our image after our likeness and let them rule or let them have dominion. So in the first time the image of God is used, it's directly connected to something to reigning.

So humans are the way that God reigns the world. So it's a very interesting narrative beginning. The image of God is something that humans are and something humans do. They embody an image, God's rule, and reign over the world. And so that's how the narrative of the Bible sets up is that God's plan was to share his world with humans and to have his reign and his rule and his will be brought about in the world through human beings. So, which really open, if you start thinking through the stories of the Bible, there are very few stories where God acts or does anything that doesn't happen through a human. So, even think of the Exodus, like the parting of the Red Sea, but if you were just in Israel

looking on, you would see Moses, you know, with his staff over the waters. So the whole, the way that God of the Bible works is through image-bearing human beings, and that's how God reigns the world through humans. And humans, so this is the ancient Near Eastern context, is that the words image, the word image refers to statue, and it is used to refer to idol statues in Israel's history. So Israel was not supposed to ever make images represent God, but they were one. But the Bible begins with God making image of God's own self in humans. Most of the large-scale, like large statues that have survived from the ancient world are images of gods or kings.

And specifically Egyptian and Assyrian and Babylonian kings were considered viewed themselves in their cultures as deities. And so in Egyptian, the phrase image of God is used, but only ever to describe the King as the image of God. And it's the same in ancient Assyrian and Babylonian. Well, so this is very kind of flattening democratic kind of thing happening at the beginning of Genesis. Yeah, so this is what's cool. So Genesis 1, I think, is intentionally making a charged statement in today that being

the image of God is not something that only the elite do, but rather it's a reality that all human beings are. And you see that in the narrative, humanity as a whole is given this task to rule and to reign It's all humanity Which is why in Genesis 9 image of God is connected to the sacredness of all human life then So if someone murders another human if you shed blood by your blood, she'll be shed because Humans are made in the image of God. So the point is that all humans are these...

There isn't classes. There isn't classes, yeah, within the narrative world of the Bible, there's just humans who image God, and humans have this royal task. And I guess that's not very scandalous for like for modern Westerners. Modern Westerners. No, what scandalous is that this is a this is a biblical idea. Like that's where the idea comes from. Right. It was not and it's not something we have received from. It wasn't a Greek idea. Not a Greek idea, certainly wasn't an eastern idea. It's a Jewish Christian idea that humans are sacred because they are made. And in this moment

it was a very revolutionary idea. Yeah. So I think wrapping all this together, I think Genesis 1, the first time the idea of raining or ruling or of God raining or ruling in the Bible, no of anybody. Actually God raining, that's the other trivia question. So the first time the word or the concept of ruling or raining appears, it's humans, ruling or raining over creation, and it's tied to their nature as mating God's image. So God's the king, he's rains, but the Bible begins with God sharing that rule and asking humans to embody that rule and rain over creation. So it's tied to the human project of humans managing and ruling the world on God to be happy. up on YouTube before the end of the year, December 2015. That's what we're shooting for.

The rest of this conversation will be in the next two episodes and the next episode we talk about, what went wrong with the Kingdom of God, and then God's plan to fix it. You can follow us on Facebook, Facebook.com slash join the Bible project. We're also on Twitter Twitter at Join Bible Proj and all of our videos, which we're really proud of, short animated films that trace a theme all the way through scripture, and also short films that walk through

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