This lesson builds upon the prior lesson "God's Ongoing Story of Restoration", where one of the take-aways was to "wear blue well". Understanding what the Kingdom of Heaven is about, and thereby getting a better idea of what is important to God, will help us to know how to do that. I'm not an expert on the Kingdom of Heaven, but the understanding I've gained has revolutionized my thinking and my priorities. I present it as I understand it, some of which has come from Dwight Prior's work on the same subject.
There is nothing Jesus talked about more than the Kingdom of Heaven.
- His preaching proclaimed it -- "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near"
- His teaching explained it -- the Sermon on the Mount is a good example
- His parables illustrated it -- "The kingdom of heaven is like ..."
- His miracles demonstrated it -- God was powerfully intervening in human lives
The first reference to the concept of the Kingdom of God in the Bible is in Exodus 15:18, where it says that "God is reigning for ever and ever". Note that it does not say "God will reign" or even "God reigns". It is present perfect tense. It is not future. And it is active. This is not about God's static sovereign rule and authority as Creator (as you might think from Genesis), but about his active eternal rule as King. It is in the context of God acting to deliver his people from slavery in Egypt.
Rabbinical concepts
Nevertheless, for the rabbis, the concept of the Kingdom of God was abstract, eternal, and static. God is in heaven. When we agree to keep his commands and honor his authority, we take on his yoke of kingship. It's a static/positional sort of thing, maybe like when we, as Christians, are declared right with God -- that "positional righteousness" is not the same thing as "practical righteousness" worked out as we are sanctified.
And even more than we long for the day when our sanctification is complete, Israel longed for the day when God would actively rule over them and over the whole world as King. That's why the Pharisees of Jesus' day were so legalistic and devout in their own way, because they thought that they could bring about God's active kingship as a result. God would reign actively over the whole world from Israel when the Messiah came. This would be on that "Great Day of the Lord", which would follow the Terrible Day of Judgment.
When John the Baptist preached, "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near", the people understood that God's rule over Israel and the whole world was going to begin soon, and the End Times were upon them. The idea of "nearness" was in the context of time; it would happen soon. It is no wonder that he drew large crowds. It was part of being Hebrew to be looking for this Kingdom to come.
Jesus' view
Jesus used the term "Kingdom of Heaven" as the name for his "movement". It was a familiar term because of the teaching of the rabbis, but he defined it differently. The term itself is
Malkhut Shamayim means kingdom of heaven
Malkhut Ha Shamayim means kingdom of the heavens
Shamayim refers to heaven or heavens. Malkhut means kingdom and derives from the verb malakh meaning "to reign". The word for "king" is melekh, which also derives from the same verb. Like so many other Hebrew words, malkhut is a verbal noun, so its emphasis is on activity, not on an abstract state. For Jesus the Kingdom was practical and dynamic, and it entered into time. It was the present immediacy of God's power breaking in and taking charge of human lives -- healing, saving, delivering, redeeming. Jesus brought the Kingdom forward from the rabbinical End Times and made it begin to take effect, or engage on the earth, when he began his ministry.
From the context, we know that when Jesus says, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near", he is not speaking temporally as "in the near future", but he's speaking of physical proximity. He was the king. He brought the kingdom. It was near anyone he was near.
When Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of Heaven, he does not specifically mean heaven, as in our eternal destination. He is not talking about a place. In some sense he is talking about realms, as in the realm where the will of the King is done. Your kingdom is measured by the range of your effective will -- where what you want to have happen, happens. The Kingdom of Heaven is where God's will and his way happen. It happens all the time in heaven, but not so much on earth. Earth is the domain of mankind, and it is a battlefield between our own kingdoms, and between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness.
The phrase in The Lord's Prayer about "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" is not about the coming of the End Times. That future apocalypse will occur. No one knows when, but it will be sudden, terrible, and seen by everyone. But that's not how Jesus describes the Kingdom of Heaven. He describes not in terms of the apocalypse, but in terms of the present age -- God's kingdom coming and growing on earth. Think of the many times Jesus spoke in parables about the Kingdom of Heaven: the tiny mustard seed that grows into a large tree; the little bit of yeast that permeates a large batch of dough; the long-term process of nurturing or fertilizing in order to see some fruit; the different types of soil where some will respond and some won't; the wheat and tares growing together until the harvest; the large net that caught both good fish and bad and they will be sorted out at the end. The Kingdom started with him, because he brought it to earth, and it is going to grow slowly over time (right alongside evil) until it is consummated in the Great Day of the Lord.
Look further at the phrase "Your kingdom come, your will be done ". This is an example of Hebrew parallelism -- two ways of saying the same thing. God's kingdom comes when and where his will is done. His kingdom grows as his will is done by his subjects. That's what Jesus is praying about here -- for what happens in heaven to happen on earth. The Kingdom is God's authority and rule over people who will commit themselves to doing his will.
- In speaking with the rich young ruler, when Jesus says it is hard for the rich to enter the Kingdom, he's talking about their unwillingness to submit to the King because of the hold their riches have on them. This was an amazing teaching because in the Hebrew mind, riches were a sign of God's blessing, so of course, a rich man would have to be in God's kingdom. Not so, says Jesus. This man was unwilling to use his riches to bless the poor, which as we'll see later, is a significant kingdom value, and so he rejected the Kingdom. Contrast him with the teacher of the Law who said that to "love God with all you heart, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, was better than all burnt offerings and sacrifices". Jesus said this man was not far from the Kingdom. He at least understood it. The rich young ruler did not.
- Jesus said that not everyone who called him "Lord" would enter the Kingdom, but only those who did the will of his Father. It matters what you do.
- Jesus told the story of the two sons, one of whom said he would obey his father but didn't, and the one who said he would not, but did. He used that to illustrate to the chief priests and the elders that the tax collectors and prostitutes were entering the Kingdom ahead of them. Notice that it says "are entering ahead of you", not "will enter ahead of you" or "will enter and you will not". They were entering now because they were repenting and believing.
That's what God wants us to do. How do we do it? We're going to go back to the Old Testament to look at something that is really important to God.
Justice and Righteousness
Khirbet Qeiyafa
We're starting with a rabbit trail here. Khirbet Qeiyafa means "beautiful ruin". It was a fortress city in the time of David. It overlooks the valley of Elah, where David fought Goliath. It is an interesting city because other than Jerusalem, it is the only city that has been found to have more than one gate. Gates are the most vulnerable part of a city, so cities mostly had only one. The word for "gate" is sha'ar, and the word for "gates" is sha'arim. When David fought Goliath, and Israel prevailed over the Philistines, the Text says that their dead were strewn along the "shaaraim road" (NIV). Surely that was the road that led to this city. That's just an interesting factoid. What is more relevant to the lesson is that the oldest ostracon (broken pottery piece with an inscription on it) in Israel was found in this city. The consensus of the translation of the inscription is something like this: "You shall not do it, but worship the Lord. Judge/support the widow, poor, and stranger." The entire inscription is in the realm of ethics, pleading for protection for the poor, infant, widow, and slave.
Old Testament references
The Old Testament is full of references to justice and righteousness as being what God truly wants:
- When God acted to deliver Israel from slavery in Egypt, he says that he had heard the cries of his oppressed people and was going to act to deliver them. When Moses asked God what he should tell the Israelites when they asked what God's name was, God said, "I am who I am", or perhaps rendered better as "I will be what I will be". He was effectively telling Moses, "You will know who I am by what I'm about to do; you will see what's important to me because I will be acting on it". Then God delivered his people from their slavery in Egypt.
- There are numerous verses in the Old Testament saying to defend the cause of the fatherless, the widow, the foreigner, the afflicted, the oppressed, etc.
- And along with those there are numerous passages indicating that the Lord loves justice and righteousness; that is what he wants his people to be about.
- Whenever the prophets rebuked Israel, it was about worshiping idols, not keeping the Sabbath, and about not upholding justice and righteousness. Amos, who lived close to En Gedi, which is a year-round flowing stream in an oasis surrounded everywhere by desert, said to "let Justice roll on like a river; Righteousness like a never failing stream".
- When Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house and many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples, the Pharisees criticized him for that. Jesus said that it was not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. He told them to go and learn what this means: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice". And he said he had not come to call the righteous, but sinners. Certainly Jesus is exemplifying justice by affirming the value of the tax collectors and sinners by eating with them, but what does his quotation have to do with it? It comes from Hosea 6. That passage starts out by the people of Israel saying that they know they have sinned against God, and they plan to return to him on their own terms. "Surely he will receive us; he won't be mad forever. He will revive and restore us in a couple of days; it'll be okay." But God is not interested in those who seek to come to him on their own terms. He says he does not want their sacrifices, but mercy. Similarly, Jesus isn't seeking those who think they are righteous on their own, and he's using that passage to tell them that they should instead be showing mercy to the people they are otherwise mistreating.
- Isaiah reflects this again in 1:11-17, where he says he doesn't want to have anything to do with their sacrifices. What he wants is clearly described in verse 17: "Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the cause of the widow."
If you grew up like me, you kind of skipped over this stuff because it was in the Old Testament and you didn't really have a good grasp of its importance. But then you come to James 1:27 where it says that pure religion and undefiled before God is to take care of orphans and widows in their distress. What do you do with that? It sounds like earning your salvation by your works, and we know that's not possible. So, perhaps like me, you dismissed this stuff as "social gospel"; what was important was saving the soul. But that's like the Biblical story begins only in Genesis 3, and all you're concerned about it is getting atonement for sin and eternal life in heaven. In reality, the story begins in Genesis 1, and not only does sin need to be atoned for, but all of the relationships that existed in the Garden and were broken in the fall need to be restored.
Sodom
When God was about to destroy Sodom, he had a conversation with himself about whether he should withhold from Abraham what he was about to do, and concluded he should disclose it to him, "because he had chosen him to direct his children and household to keep the ways of the Lord by doing what is right and just". We are pretty aware of the wickedness that existed in Sodom, but the wickedness that God calls out in Ezekiel and is so angry about is that they were "arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned, not helping the poor and needy".
Amalek
Amalek was Esau's grandson. Esau's inheritance was east of the Dead Sea in Edom, south of Moab. The Amalek tribe was warlike and were kicked out of that area. They became raiders in the southern Negev and Sinai peninsula. They were desert pirates.
The Amalekites traveled more than 200 miles through jeshimon desert to attack Israel on their journey from Egypt to Sinai. God was so angry with them that he said he would blot out their name from under heaven. Why such a strong response? They preyed on the vulnerable. They came from behind and picked off the stragglers, those falling behind, those having a hard time keeping up. God's heart is for the vulnerable, and he would not tolerate this. Nothing seems to make him angrier than when people take advantage of them. He must rejoice when we take care of them.
After Israel entered the promised land, Saul was charged with the task of destroying the Amalekites. He was to spare nothing. Israel was not to benefit in any way from any plunder. But Saul kept King Agag alive, and spared the best of the livestock. In fact, it says that they only destroyed what was weak and despised, and that's essentially how the Amalekites treated Israel when they preyed on them. Saul's disobedience cost him the kingdom, and Samuel had to do Saul's job for him.
That seems like it should be the end of the Amalekites, but evidently Saul had spared others as well, because the Amalekites appear a couple of other times in Scripture. And finally we get to the story of Esther and we discover that Haman, the enemy of the Jews, is an Agagite, a descendent of Agag. Mordecai is of the tribe of Benjamin, which was Saul's tribe, and furthermore he is a descendent of Saul's father (Kish). Interesting that it was members of Saul's family who finally put an end to the Amalekites. Haman and his family are put to death, and 75,000 of Israel's enemies are killed, and Israel took no plunder. There is no further mention of the Amalekites after this time.
Israel
In Isaiah, God describes Israel as his vineyard. It says he looked for good fruit, but only saw a bad crop. Actually the word there is very strong, not just "bad", but putrid. The Text goes on to say that God looked for justice (mishpat) but saw bloodshed (mishpak); he looked for righteousness (tzedekah) but heard cries of distress (tze'ekah). It's a play on words in the Hebrew, which makes the point all that much stronger. But it is also an example of Hebrew parallelism -- two ways of saying the same thing. Justice and Righteousness are very much related to each other.
Justice and Righteousness Explained
Mishpat means legal justice or retributive justice. It is necessary for society. There must be a system to protect and defend the rights of all people. This is necessary for all societies, not just Israel. But God says that Righteousness is what will set his people apart. Tzedekah is righteousness, and it means social or distributive justice. It blends together the ideas of justice and charity. It's what we think of as charity (aid, assistance, money to the poor or to the needy or to worthy causes), but it comes from a motivation of righteousness or justice or fairness. It is everyone's religious duty to give the poor their due.
Another example of the meaning of "righteousness" comes from Matthew 6:1, where Jesus talks of not doing your "acts of righteousness" in a way to be seen by men. Earlier translations would refer to that as "giving your alms to the poor", so again we see the meaning of righteousness in this context.
People in need have a legal right to food, clothing, and shelter that must be honored by more fortunate people. Everyone is entitled to have their basic needs met. There is more than enough for everyone. This is not socialism. God is not against wealth. But he gives it for a purpose and he cares what you do with it. Righteousness speaks of good deeds done in partnership with God. It's all in the context of God restoring everything that was broken in the fall.
It may help to have God's perspective on ownership and possessions. Psalm 24:1 says that the earth is the Lord's, and everything in it. He owns it all. We don't own any of it. We possess it on behalf of the owner. We are managers or stewards. The blessings he gives us are not intended for us to keep, but to use to bless others. Recall the image of the Dead Sea from the first week, where getting bloated with blessings makes you toxic.
How does God see this working out with Israel? There are a number of passages in Leviticus where God gives instructions regarding the land. It stayed within the original tribe to which it was allotted. The most important thing you had was your family and your land. You would never sell it unless that was the only option. And then, it had to be bought (redeemed) by your nearest relative who could do that. And if you were later able to repurchase the land, it had to be sold back to you. Everything comes back to the original owner in the year of Jubilee, and so land prices reflected the amount of time until the next Jubilee. So if you bought land, it was kind of like you were renting it. The land could not be permanently sold; it belonged to God.
When you harvested your fields, you wouldn't harvest close to the corners/edges, and you would not go over the field a second time. Whatever you didn't get on the first pass was deliberately left for the needy to glean for themselves. This was not a handout/welfare system -- the poor had to work to reap it. It gave them dignity and honor. Judaism says that the highest form of honor is to empower someone else to do something for themselves. Thoughtless charity can bring shame. So there's a good lesson here to figure out how to empower the needy. Micro-financing and micro-lending are good investments that help to move the needy to self-sufficiency.
Along the same lines, Deuteronomy and Exodus describe a 7-year cycle for the land and the tithes from it. In different years the tithe would go to the temple, or to the Levites, or to the poor. The land was to rest on the 7th year, and the poor could glean from it whatever grew voluntarily. Probably none of us are farmers, but the principles still apply: How can we use what God has given us to bless those in need?
Deuteronomy 8:10-14, 17-18 warn us not to think that our prosperity has come from ourselves, and to become indifferent to the heart of God. He reminds us that he has given us the ability to produce wealth, so in the end, he still owns it all. Why do we hang onto it so tightly? If God owns it, then we're simply stewards of it. If he gives it to us, we can give it away knowing that if we need it again, he will give it to us again. Wow, do I ever have a long way to go in being able to actually live that way!
Malachi says we rob God when we don't give the him our tithe and offerings. He says to bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, "that there may be food in my house", and then to test him and see if he doesn't pour out a blessing on us bigger than we can contain. Remember, God is working with us to restore the world.
When Israel got it right, God blessed them abundantly. When the Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon, her conclusion was that because of God's eternal love for Israel, he had made Solomon king to maintain justice and righteousness. It comes up over and over again; you can't get away from it. And look at how much God blessed Israel in those days!
A fitting conclusion comes from Jeremiah 9:23-24: "This is what the Lord says: 'Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on the earth, for in these I delight', declares the Lord."
One further thought comes from the book When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. A passage on pages 43-44 speaks of the 'Great Reversal'. It refers to the fact that prior to the 20th century, the church was involved in ministering to the physical and spiritual needs of the poor, but at the start of the 20th century evangelicals battled theological liberals over the fundamental tenets of Christianity, and the evangelicals began to distance themselves from the 'social gospel'. As the church began to stop caring for the poor, the government began to step in to do it, and this gave rise to the welfare state.
This entire lesson speaks directly to me. I grew up as a product of the "evangelical side" of the house, completely ignoring the other side, dismissing it as "social gospel", attempting to earn your way to heaven, and not something we should be concerned with because what mattered was the salvation of peoples' souls.
My thinking has been radically changed because of the teachings in this lesson, and they are affecting what we are doing with our retirement years, but I still have a long way to go to be able to really live out these principles.
Handouts
Rabbinical concepts
YHWH
Adonai
Exodus 15:18
Zechariah 9:9
Zechariah 14:9
Jesus’ view
Malkhut Ha Shamayim, Malkhut Shamayim
shamayim
malkhut
malakh
melekh
Matthew 4:17
Psalm 115:16
Matthew 6:10
Matthew 13:31-32
Matthew 13:33
Matthew 13:44-46
Luke 13:6-9
2 Peter 3:9
Matthew 13:18-23
Matthew 13:24-30
Matthew 13:47-50
Luke 18:18-25
Mark 12:28-33
Matthew 7:21
Matthew 21:28-32
Khirbet Qeiyafa
sha’ar, sha’arim
I Samuel 17:52
Justice and Righteousness introduced
Exodus 3:9-10
Exodus 3:13-14
Deuteronomy 10:17-19
Psalm 10:16-18
Psalm 11:7
Amos 5:21-24
Matthew 9:10-13
Hosea 6:1-6
Isaiah 1:11-17
James 1:27
Sodom
Genesis 18:17-21
Ezekiel 16:49-50
Amalek
Genesis 36:12
Exodus 17:8, 14-16
Deuteronomy 25:17-19
I Samuel 15:1-3
I Samuel 15:7-9
I Samuel 15:26-28
I Samuel 15:32-33
I Samuel 16:13-17
I Chronicles 4:42-43
Esther 3:1, 10
Esther 2:4-7
Israel
Isaiah 5:2-4
Isaiah 5:7
mishpat
mishpak
tzedekah
tze’ekah
Justice and Righteousness explained
Matthew 6:1
Psalm 24:1
Leviticus 25:23-24
Leviticus 25:25-28
Leviticus 25:8-13
Leviticus 19:9-10
Deuteronomy 14:22-23
Deuteronomy 14:28-29
Exodus 23:10-11
Deuteronomy 15:1
Deuteronomy 8:10-14, 17-18
Malachi 3:6-12 I Kings 10:9
Jeremiah 9:23-24
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