Planting Churches among the City's Poor - Volume 1

P ART II: T HEOLOGICAL AND M ISSIOLOGICAL P RINCIPLES AND I NSIGHTS • 177

desires peace and that what he desires he will bring. Someday, we said and knew, all the world will be like this magic moment. But not without cost and struggle. Jesus urges: “Enter through the narrow gate.” For “small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7.13-14). The Kingdom of God is life in abundance (John 10.10), but the way to life is through the narrow gate of faith and obedience to Jesus Christ. If Christians today want to experience the peaceable order of the Kingdom, they must learn and live God’s way of peace.

~ Excerpted from Howard A Snyder. A Kingdom Manifesto . “Introduction and Chapter One.” Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1985. pp. 11-25.

The Preaching and Teaching of Jesus Summary of Teaching, Vic Gordon

1. The most important thing in life is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. To do that we must learn from him and then obey what we hear. He must be our Teacher and Lord (Matthew 7.24-27; 11.29; 28.18-20; John 13.13). 2. Obviously, we cannot follow Jesus if we do not know what he taught. The main theme of his preaching and teaching was the Kingdom of God. Most Christians do not know this, yet they call him Lord and Master Teacher! 3. But we are then faced with an immediate problem. As soon as we know the main theme of his teaching, we automatically mis understand it. Kingdom means something different in the biblical idiom (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek) than in contemporary English. To us “Kingdom” means “realm” (a place over which a king rules) or “a group of people who live in a king’s realm” (the people over whom a king rules). In the Bible, however, the primary meaning of “Kingdom” is “reign” or “rule.” The Kingdom of God thus means the reign of God or the rule of God. The Kingdom of God is not a place nor a people, but God’s active, dynamic rule. The Kingdom is an act of God, i.e. something he does. 4. The burden and purpose of Jesus’ three year public ministry leading up to his death and resurrection was to preach, proclaim and teach about the Kingdom of God (Mark 1.14ff; Matthew 4.17, 23; 9.35; Luke 4.42ff; 8.1; 9.2, 6, 11; 10.1, 9; Acts 1.3; 28.31).