It's not often that a book on my desk for review actually changes my mind about something. But Scot McKnight's Kingdom Conspiracy (releasing October 21 from Brazos, and available for pre-order online) persuaded me that today's evangelicals misuse the biblical term "kingdom" in ways that, though well-intentioned, carry negative implications for the work of the Church. I followed up with McKnight, professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, Illinois, to draw out more for PARSE's readers. – Paul
You argue that “kingdom” is the term most misused by Christians today. In short, how do we misuse it?
Kingdom is misused because we all assume we know what it means. Like the word “gospel,” which I examined in King Jesus Gospel, which constantly is used for “how to get saved” or the “message that can be shaped into the plan of salvation.” This is not how “gospel” was used in the New Testament. So with the word “kingdom,” which has become nearly synonymous with two different standard uses.
For some "kingdom" means acting in the public sector for the common good in order to create a world with better conditions, and for others it has come to mean little more than salvation, or what I often call “redemptive moments.” If we care to shape our theology and our use of terms like “kingdom” on the basis of what the Bible says, then those two definitions are gross reductions of what the Bible says.
Yes, of course, kingdom includes ethics (though they are not to be secularized as progressives sometimes do) and it brings redemption (as many Christians are prone to say), but those are only two aspects of a much fuller story about kingdom in the Bible. Until we get each of the elements into play we are not looking at what the Bible is saying.
So, is “kingdom” just “Church”?
Yes and no. By adding “just” the balance is tipped toward the negative. One overhears someone groaning or rolling their eyes to say, “You can’t really mean you want to reduce kingdom to church.” Again, we get those pejorative terms at work. No, the kingdom cannot be reduced to what many think of the church, but I would say we need to expand church to kingdom proportions.
But here’s the issue: there are five elements of a kingdom in the Bible.
First, you have to have a king. That is God in Christ.
Second, the king has to rule to be a true king. A king without a rule is an empty mask.
Third, for a king to rule the king has to have something to rule. In fact, someone, and even more, some people. So, for there to be a kingdom you have to have a king who rules a people. At this point we must ask a simple question: Who is the people over whom God rules? The answer to that question in the Bible, is Israel and the church. In Christian terms we put it like this: for the kingdom to exist in the Bible we need God to rule in Christ over a people called the church. Kingdom people are church people, church people are kingdom people.
Fourth, a king rules a people by way of his will expressed in law. That is, the Torah for Israel and for the church the teachings of Jesus and life in the Spirit.
Finally, and this is an element that needs some more work but it is not a focus in my book, for there to be a kingdom there must be a king ruling over a people who dwell in a space, or a land. I believe the land promises expand in the New Testament but these five elements are now clear.
So, yes, the church now is the kingdom now.
One more important point: let’s learn to compare like to like. It does no good to compare the future kingdom—utopia, an ideal future—to the present reality of the church and then to say the church is not the kingdom. The kingdom is both a now and not yet reality and the church too is a now and not yet reality. We need to compare the present kingdom with the present church and the future kingdom with the future church. When we do that the circles are all but the same. Open your Bible and look up the word “kingdom” in the OT and ask yourself to whom/what it refers. Nearly every time it refers to Israel or a nation. We conclude that “kingdom is a people.”
Bring that home—why does our terminology of kingdom matter for theology and practical ministry?
We live in a day when an increasing number of Christians have fallen for the idea that God’s real and best and most important work is in the public sector, in making the world a better place, in the halls of power like Washington DC, in working for the homeless and hungering.
These are all “good works” (as I argue in the book) but this colossal shift among evangelicals has resulted in two major changes: (1) a decreasing interest in pastoral and church ministry, and (2) a blanketing of everything outside the church with the word “kingdom” in order to sanctify and explain to ourselves that what we are doing is meaningful. The major reason for this book is to contend that God’s mission in this world is the church. I develop in the book an ecclesio-centric vision of kingdom and God’s work in this world.
I don’t ever suggest we ought not to be involved in good works in the world, but good works in the world are not what the Bible means by kingdom work.
It sure seems like a lot of the confusion here is a failure to do large-level biblical theology. Should pastors revisit their interpretive strategies?
Each leader in the church, especially those charged with teaching and preaching, are required to soak themselves in the grand story of the Bible in order to find our message and our mission in God’s revelation. I am calling us to re-examine the gauzy and flabby uses of kingdom at work in the church today. The most common use I am hearing today is that kingdom refers to good people doing good things in the public sector for the common good. Thus, kingdom work is public sector actions while church work is private religion. This is a colossal error and contrary to the Bible’s five themes about kingdom. We need to regain that biblical sense of kingdom.
Your nuanced view of kingdom has implications for discipleship. Can you unpack those a bit?
A preaching teacher who spends time with hundreds of young preachers in the USA told me that the vast majority (he said 90%) are preaching about social justice. I am urging us to learn to preach about Jesus and the gospel for the edification of the church. If this is the case, then our focus is to be about building kingdom citizens, people who learn to live under king Jesus by knowing and doing his will, people who learn to dwell with one another as a fellowship, and people who witness to the glory of God through a way of life together that counters the narratives of this world’s system of injustice, evil, and distortions. Discipleship then is more than just becoming a personal follower of Jesus; discipleship is about learning to live with disciples in such a way that we as a fellowship offer a brand new reality to the world’s systems.
Learning to see kingdom and church together this way leads us away from discipleship as simple individualism to discipleship as church formation. We learn to see spiritual disciplines as more than our personal growth and just as much, if not more, as local church growth and formation. We learn to see that our gifts are for the church, not ourselves; that the fruit of the Spirit is entirely shaped for group relations and not just personal virtues. We need then a more ecclesio-centric theory of discipleship.
Simply, how would a Christian leader lead differently after internalizing the biblical vision of “kingdom” rather than the popular one?
The leader would ask this question first: How is our church reflecting the kingdom of God to the world in our context? The leader’s first question would not be: How am I reflecting the kingdom of God to the world in my personal life?
This ecclesio-centric theory of kingdom then calls us to group formation and to see that our church is called to embody the kingdom in the here and now in our local context as a witness to God’s redemption now unleashed.
Paul J. Pastor is associate editor of Leadership Journal and PARSE.
