I’ve noticed that phrases like “building the kog” or “growing the kingdom of God” continue to dominate many Christian ministries.
But is this what Jesus or his Apostles ever taught?
- Jesus defines the word “kingdom” as something other than himself that’s at hand, coming soon, near but never already here.
This is what Jesus calls the good news/the gospel about the kingdom
Mar 1:14b Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
Luke 8:1 Jesus traveled from one town and village to another, preaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with Him.
Mat 24:14 “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.”
(NOTE: similar to the Synoptics John uses other terms to talk about the gospel as the word(s) of Jesus and kingdom as “eternal life,” lit. life of the age to come.)
For example, Peter says to Jesus in John 6.68:
You have the words of eternal life.
- The Apostolic mission is to proclaim/preach the gospel about that coming kingdom which now includes the name of Jesus (i.e., his ministry, death/resurrection, Acts 8:12)
But when they believed Philip as he preached the gospel of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.
2. Which means Jesus alone is not the whole Gospel!
For example, many Kingdom Now Ministries love to misquote Paul in 1Cor 15 as saying that the death/resurrection of Jesus is the whole saving gospel (15:2).
But note that Paul calls the resurrection of Jesus among items of first importance and not just the most important (as many mistranslate the Greek in 1Cor 15:3)
This means that for Paul the death/resurrection of Jesus is not the whole Gospel.
As a matter of fact, earlier in this very letter, Paul warns the church at Corinth to “wait until the lord comes,” (1Cor 4.5, i.e., when they themselves will be raised from death).
And then Paul asks the church:
Are you already satisfied? Are you now rich? Have you become kings while we are still nobodies? I wish you were kings. Then we could have a share in your kingdom. 1Cor 4:8 CEV
So let’s be careful, preaching-proclaiming the Kingdom-Gospel does not mean we are “building” or spreading the kingdom now!
The Kingdom Now Ministries also love to misuse Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed to say just that.
But note that the parable comes on the heels of the parable of the sower which is about SPREADING the seed, i.e., PREACHING the word, which is the message about the kingdom, as Mat 13.19a explains.
The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message about the Kingdom and don’t understand it.
And again, the spreading/preaching of the seed-message about the KOG should not be confused with the way Jesus has already defined the word and kingdom concept.
This is what the Apostolic mission was rooted upon, the commandment by Jesus to teach all nations to obey everything he said (Mat 28.20).
SUMMARY
- Like the OT prophets before him, Jesus clearly defined the kingdom as a future event, the restoration of the kingdom of David, i.e., the nation of Israel.
The Apostles understood this well hence their question in Acts 1:6
“Lord, has the time come for you to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
2. So that kingdom is always at hand, near but never said to already be here! The Apostles diligently followed the parable of the sower model which is all about spreading the seed, i.e., preaching, proclaiming the word-message about that soon to come KOG (Mat 13.19a).
3. And Christians should stop conflating the idea of telling the church to behave like KOG people now (e.g., Rom 14:17) with that future kingdom on earth.
