“And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent.” (Luke 4:43)
Let us follow the steps of Christ and his apostles in this matter. The soon-coming of the kingdom was the message first announced by John the Baptist. His message—one that broke a four-century prophetic silence—was just this: “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2). The Lord Jesus himself reinforced the primacy of the kingdom message: “From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). The apostles continued to emphasize this message in their generation.
This blog will seek to encourage Christians to once more embrace the kingdom of God as the central element of their message to the modern world. It will do so through discussions related to the interpretation of prophetic passages throughout the Bible. The kingdom of God transcends this category, however. Indeed, it touches every area of life. Paul, for example, saw the kingdom of God as “not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 14:17). The proclamation of the kingdom rings hollow if confined to our traditional “prophetic passages.” It must break such limitations and influence us, our churches, and our society at every level.
Why is AD 70 in our name? The Roman legions destroyed the second Jewish Temple in that year. This event provided a dramatic close to the apostolic generation and fulfilled centuries of prophecies about what would happen in the last days of the Mosaic age. Indeed, the events of AD 70 provide the scriptural line of demarcation between the Mosaic and Messianic ages.
The destruction of the Temple in AD 70 was also the subject of the Olivet Discourse, Jesus’ longest prophetic message. The fulfillment of this prophecy against all odds is a major apologetic tool for the Christian faith. Surprisingly, the modern church possesses an underdeveloped appreciation for the significance of this event. This powerful evidence for the truthfulness of Scripture is seldom used in our battle against the gods of this world. We hope to elevate the appreciation of this event through this blog.
The events of AD 70 will also play a central part in our effort to develop a framework for the interpretation of prophecy. In our estimation, none of the existing options for interpretation of prophecy give AD 70 its deserved place. We hope to use this blog as a vehicle to begin the construction of a framework that corrects this deficiency.
As the framework develops in future posts, we will make our underlying assumptions as explicit as possible. We will allow the Scriptures to guide the construction process. We are of the opinion that the Bible is not a collection of “proof texts” designed to be cherry-picked in support of a previously adopted view. We will remain open to a scriptural correction of incorrect assumptions in the prophetic frameworks we have inherited.
The message of the kingdom of God in Scripture is designed to rock our world, to shake our view of how things operate, and to confront everything that would exalt itself against God and his Christ with the reality of what God has done, is doing, and plans to do in his good creation. It will ultimately triumph over all its enemies, and the realization of that triumph is not entirely reserved for the eternal state!
Join us as we seek to “preach the kingdom of God” through this blog!
1 comment
Subscribed. This is great stuff!
>The message of the kingdom of God in Scripture is designed to rock our world, to shake our view of how things operate, and to confront everything that would exalt itself against God and his Christ with the reality of what God has done, is doing, and plans to do in his good creation. It will ultimately triumph over all its enemies, and the realization of that triumph is not entirely reserved for the eternal state!
Great summary of the Message! My world has been rocked, and every preconception shaken away, since I realized that one can trust ONLY the Word of God. It is trivial for the enemy to insert ideas into our minds which contradict or goes beyond Jesus’ teaching. The renewal of the mind – the ability to know nothing at all except Christ and Him crucified – has absolutely rocked my world, turned it upside down and inside out. I know of no other way to catch a glimpse of the triumph that now is!