Planting Churches among the City's Poor - Volume 1

178 • P LANTING C HURCHES AMONG THE C ITY ’ S P OOR : V OLUME 1

5. Jesus was the original proclaimer of the Gospel, and he proclaimed it originally in terms of the Kingdom of God (Mark 1.14ff; Matthew 4.23; 9.35; 24.14; Luke 20.1). The good news is about God’s reign. Of course this is a metaphor, a word picture describing a profound reality. 6. Jesus’ teaching on the Kingdom of God as we will see, determines the basic structure of all his teaching, and indeed the structure of the teaching of the entire New Testament. a. It was biblical. While the exact phrase “Kingdom of God” never occurs in the Old Testament (maybe once in 1 Chronicles 28.5), the idea is everywhere present in the Old Testament. God is always and everywhere King in the Old Testament, especially in the prophets. His kingship is not always realized in this sinful world. In fact the major emphasis in the Old Testament, stated in hundreds of ways and different word pictures, is on God’s future, coming reign. The hope of the Old Testament is that God himself will come and bring salvation to his people and judgment/destruction to his enemies. (See e.g. 1 Chronicles 29.11; Psalms 22.28; 96.10-13; 103.19; 145.11-13; Isaiah 25ff; 65ff; Daniel 2.44; 4.3, 34; 6.26; 7.13ff, 27.) b. It was understood and meaningful to the first century Palestinian Jews to whom he proclaimed the Good News. In fact, the phrase “Kingdom of God” had developed a great deal in the 400 years between the Old Testament and the coming of Jesus. Kingdom of God now summarized the entire Old Testament hope! The first century Jews were expecting God to come as king and reign over the entire world, destroying his enemies and giving all his blessings to his people, Israel. This concept was especially meaningful to the Jews who, on the one hand, strongly believed that their God Yahweh was the one and only true God who ruled over all the universe, and who, on the other, experienced over 700 years of foreign domination at the hands of pagan rulers from Assyria, then Babylon, then Persia, then Greece and finally Rome. Jesus never defines the Kingdom of God for them, because they all knew what it meant. This is a great example for us in our ministries. Jesus went to the people where they were (the incarnation!), was faithful to the biblical message, and spoke it to them in terms they could understand. (See e.g. Luke 1.32ff; 19.11; 23.51; Mark 11.10; 15.43; Acts 1.6.) The phrase 7. Why did Jesus choose the word picture “Kingdom of God” to proclaim the good news of God to the world? Two basic reasons: