I get distracted easily. I love to multi-task and sometimes that gives me blurry vision. Yet by God's grace I often refocus and ask what is the gospel of the Kingdom to which I am called? THAT is the question.
Thanks to theologian George Eldon Ladd the phrase "gospel of the Kingdom" is a lot more understandable to day than it was a generation ago. The gospel of the Kingdom is the message of Good News that Jesus has inaugurated the Kingdom of God on earth.
This coming Thursday we will launch the Isaac-Ishmael Initiative website and Facebook page, thus officially going public with this movement to promote Shalom in Jesus toward Jews and Muslims.
The gospel of the Kingdom is at the very heart of the Initiative. It is about the People of God as the agents of announcing the gospel of the Kingdom, and Jesus Christ as its King.
George Eldon Ladd put it this way toward the end of his book, The Gospel of the Kingdom:
This is the mystery of the Kingdom: Before the day of harvest, before the end of the age, God has entered into history in the person of Christ to work among men, to bring to them the life and blessings of His Kingdom. It comes humbly, unobtrusively.
It comes to men as a Galilean carpenter went throughout the cities of Palestine preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, delivering men from their bondage to the Devil.
It comes to men as his disciples went throughout Galilean villages with the same message. It comes to men today as disciples of Jesus still take, the Gospel of the Kingdom into all the world.
It comes quietly, humbly, without fire from heaven, without a blaze of glory, without a rending of the mountains or a cleaving of the skies.
It comes like seed sown in the earth. It can be rejected by hard hearts, it can be choked out, its life may sometimes seem to wither and die. But it is the Kingdom of God. It brings the miracle of the divine life among men. It introduces them into the blessings of the divine rule. It is to them the supernatural work of God's grace.
Thanks to theologian George Eldon Ladd the phrase "gospel of the Kingdom" is a lot more understandable to day than it was a generation ago. The gospel of the Kingdom is the message of Good News that Jesus has inaugurated the Kingdom of God on earth.
The gospel of the Kingdom is at the very heart of the Initiative. It is about the People of God as the agents of announcing the gospel of the Kingdom, and Jesus Christ as its King.
George Eldon Ladd put it this way toward the end of his book, The Gospel of the Kingdom:
This is the mystery of the Kingdom: Before the day of harvest, before the end of the age, God has entered into history in the person of Christ to work among men, to bring to them the life and blessings of His Kingdom. It comes humbly, unobtrusively.
It comes to men as a Galilean carpenter went throughout the cities of Palestine preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, delivering men from their bondage to the Devil.
It comes to men as his disciples went throughout Galilean villages with the same message. It comes to men today as disciples of Jesus still take, the Gospel of the Kingdom into all the world.
It comes quietly, humbly, without fire from heaven, without a blaze of glory, without a rending of the mountains or a cleaving of the skies.
It comes like seed sown in the earth. It can be rejected by hard hearts, it can be choked out, its life may sometimes seem to wither and die. But it is the Kingdom of God. It brings the miracle of the divine life among men. It introduces them into the blessings of the divine rule. It is to them the supernatural work of God's grace.
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