Signpost: The Gospel According to Matthew

THIS IS NOT YOUR FATHERS’
KINGDOM OF GOD

(Yes, the apostrophe is deliberately placed.)

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2 Responses to Signpost: The Gospel According to Matthew

  1. Isn’t the Gospel According to Matthew the one that spends a lot of time trying to demonstrate that this _is_ your fathers’ Kingdom of God? It’s the gospel that has all the references to the Old Testament showing how Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecies.

  2. Michael says:

    Indeed it has. The distinction I’m making is between what many hearers and their forebears had anticipated — the heavenly army marching in, Messiah wielding his divine Excalibur and cleaving the power of Rome into fragments, Israel lording it over everyone — and what was really happening. I’m convinced there is a future for a national Israel (Abraham’s physical descendants), but what the first-century Israelis were expecting didn’t have anything to do with “poor in spirit,” mourning, or persecution. The Hebrew Scriptures’ kingdom of God, yes; that of the audience and its recent generations, no.

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