(upbeat music) - In this episode of the
BibleProject podcast, Tim and I are gonna be dialoguing
about a theme in the Bible that begins at the very
beginning of Scripture, goes all the way to the end, and it's a theme that's
central to Jesus' message, but it's incredibly difficult
for us to understand, as, well, I should say, at least for me to understand. It's the theme of the Kingdom of God. This dialogue was super helpful for me in wrapping my mind around why that was so central to Jesus' message and what it should mean to me
if I'm trying to follow Jesus. We broke this up into three parts. In this first part, Tim introduces the concept
of the Kingdom of God and shows us how it is
staring us in the face in Genesis chapter 1. ♪ Trying to pretend ♪ ♪ Pleasing all your mentors ♪ ♪ Though never quite convinced ♪ ♪ Now you are much older ♪ ♪ Free to skip the test ♪ ♪ Now it's time to rest ♪ - One of the most interesting
little mental exercises to do is to ask yourself, "If I tried to boil down everything I know "about what Jesus ever said, "if I had to summarize it in one sentence "or think of one saying or teaching that, "that is the essence of
what I think he taught, "what would that be?" - Right, so what would it be? - Well, you tell me. I've done it before. - Yeah, we just did this. This is, we already
went for this exercise, but I said, "love your
neighbor," is what I said. - Yes, love your neighbor,
popular number one. Coming in a hot second-
- Is... - Would be, like, the golden rule, "Do unto others as you
would have them do to you." - Yep. - Maybe you know somebody
who's really passionate about social justice might
think of "love your enemies," forgive them, pray for
them, that kind of thing. - Someone who deals with
a lot of anxiety like me, I always go to "do not worry," for some reason that one
feels like an important. - Yeah, birds don't worry about food-
- Birds don't worry. - So why should you? - Yeah. - So here's what's interesting about that is that how I summarize what I think is the main message or teaching of Jesus tells me a lot about who I think Jesus was. - Okay. - And so, in contrast to
that is an interesting fact that three of the four
accounts of Jesus' life in the New Testament, the Gospels according to
Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they summarize the whole
message of Jesus for us in the first sentence
that they put in his mouth when he comes onto the public scene in each of those Gospels. And that summary sentence is, "Repent for the kingdom of God is here," or, "it has arrived." So from the Gospel authors' point of view, the moral teachings of
Jesus, love your neighbor, the scandalous moral teachings,
forgive your enemies, that kind of thing. Those are not the essence
of Jesus' message. Those are subordinate to some
larger, more important idea. Those behaviors only make sense in light of some bigger thing. And that bigger thing is that
the Kingdom of God is here. - And so would you say, because the Gospel authors summarize it as the Kingdom of God is here or near, or what do they say here or near? - Near or has arrived.
- Or has arrived. - Kind of the way I like to paraphrase it. - That since they're doing that, that's how a Christ
follower should do as well? - Yeah, I think. So we tend to, by those summaries, think of Jesus primarily
as a moral teacher. The Gospels are interested in
portraying Jesus as a prophet, in line with Israel's
prophets, who was announcing and heralding the great day of
God's justice and salvation. - Do you think that we
don't emphasize that because we just don't understand? I mean, it's a lot harder
to understand this idea of the Kingdom of God, how that
ties into all this prophecy. I mean, it's really dense. - Yeah, it's a foreign narrative to us. You know, so we in the West have a grand narrative of
like moral progress, really. I mean, that's the driving
narrative of the Western world. - Good point there.
- It's a moral progress. So we like to tie Jesus
into that where we can. But Jesus' grand narrative was about the covenant story of God and Israel and the world coming to
its climax in himself, in the arrival of the Kingdom. And that's weird. And because kingdom and prophecy as an American Christianity mostly been dominated by end of the world, "Left Behind" weirdness that we don't know what to do with this part of who Jesus is. - Yeah, that makes sense. And that's why I like
this project so much, is it's going back and saying, "Okay, what is this kind of crazy story "that's well, it's unfamiliar to us?" We get feedback that
the word crazy is not- - That's right. - It's a bad word to
use, we like to use it. It's unfamiliar,
surprising, strange story. And so this idea of God's Kingdom, that's one of the strangest
things for us to think about. - Yeah, we don't, you know, other than, I mean there are still
kingdoms in the world today, but they're mostly kind of,
- Like? - The United Kingdom, Britain has a queen-
- Oh, okay. - And the prince and princess
and that kind of thing. But for the most part, they're archaic survivals from
earlier era human history. So kingdom and kings
isn't a social reality for most Westerners and for
most of the modern world. So we think of democracy not kings. - Sure. - And so it's just, so the word is foreign in its imagery and then the story, the biblical story that Jesus sees himself
fulfilling is also foreign to us 'cause it's not our grand narrative. But, so the whole point is that, for Jesus, he summarized his message. The Kingdom of God is
what Jesus talked about more than any other topic, hands down. So just in the Gospel of Matthew alone, Jesus mentions the Kingdom over 50 times, which is 1.5 times per
page of the 28 chapter at Gospel of Matthew. So it's, clearly that's what he dominated. That was the dominating
theme of his teaching. So if we want to understand who Jesus is and who he sees himself as, we need to learn what this term meant and how it fits into
the story of the Bible. (upbeat music) The English word "kingdom," if
you look like in a dictionary, it primarily refers to a place, and the Greek and Hebrew words, in Greek, "basileia," and Hebrew, "malkuth," refers to an activity, an action or - In English it refers to a place. - In English it refers to a place. - In Hebrew and Greek,
- The biblical term, Old Testament and New Testament, refers primarily to an
action that includes a place. So here's how I say it in the notes here, that in Bible, it refers to an action, the rule or the reign of
a king over his people, which is gonna be somewhere. - So like you're kingdom-ing someone. - Yeah or I actually think the verb's "rule," or we have the noun in
English, the "reign" of a king. - Right. - Which in, obviously it
has to take place somewhere. - So by saying the reign of the king is the same thing as saying
the kingdom of a king. - In the Bible, yes.
- In the Bible, yep. - Or the word kingdom
has just stuck with us from older English from the King James and Tyndale before him. And that noun has just stuck in English translations over time. But the biblical word refers to the activity of a
king reigning over his people. So. - So when Jesus says the
Kingdom of God is here, you could translate that
the reign of God is here. - Correct. And the importance is that, especially because Matthew
is the first Gospel in the New Testament, the frequent phrase in Matthew
is the "Kingdom of Heaven," which Jesus uses synonymously
with the Kingdom of God. Heaven is just paraphrase, we're talking about God's
reign or the reign of Heaven. But the problem in the history
of Western interpretation has been because Kingdom of Heaven is what people read first
in the New Testament. - Right. - They think of it as a place. - Yeah 'cause Heaven is a place. - Heaven is God's space up
in the clouds somewhere. - And so there's a kingdom up there. - There's a kingdom up there,
and it's arriving here. And that's, yeah, I mean, that's not
too far from the idea, but it's more talking about there's God's space where God is King and where everything- - There's a reality in which God reigns. - There's a reality in which God reigns and where everything that
is done is God's will. And the story of the Bible as it goes on, the earth has become a
place where God's will is not done because we
assert our will over it and God's allowed us to do that. And so Jesus is announcing
the arrival of God's reign to take back his world from us. That's at least phase one, it's not quite as simple as that but. - Phase one, meaning? - Well, sorry, no, we're getting in. - Idea one.
- Idea one, yeah. So there you go, kingdom in the
Bible refers to an activity primarily, it assumes a place, right? So if a king is reigning, he's reigning over some people somewhere. - That idea is taken for granted in people's thought. - Yeah. - Whereas in English, it
refers, we think of a place as opposed to the person and the way that the person is reigning. - The word kingdom and
what is, is that Latin? Dom? What's "dom" even mean? - Dom, the Latin root dom, let's find it. - Well, on Wiktionary, it forms a noun that
denotes the condition, power, dominion, authority, or state from Proto-Germanic "domaz." - Domaz. - So forming nouns that
denote condition or state, boredom, freedom. - All right, sure.
- Martyrdom, stardom. - Okay, so a state of
the king is a kingdom. - So forming nouns that note
the domain or jurisdiction, Christendom, fiefdom, kingdom. - So those are the two main
ones, a condition or domain. - And domain kind of speaks to land. - Yeah, exactly, geography. Whereas... - Condition.
- It can also form where in the condition. - But that's what you're speaking to, it's a condition.
- That's yeah. In Bible, it's referring to a condition or a state of activity. So boredom is a state of being bored. Kingdom is a state of being ruled. A state of being under someone's rule. - Yeah. If you're in the kingdom, if you are bringing the
kingdom, you are reigning. - You're bringing the rule. - You're bringing the rule, yes. So some of my favorite
New Testament scholars on this whole topic, R.T. France or N.T. Wright or a German guy, (indistinct). They translate it with Isaiah, the rule of God or the
reign of God has arrived. - Cool. - And I think that's helpful. Let's just twist it in
English a little bit to get. - To give the right connotation. - To make it fresh. And then it gets you to ask the question, What does it mean for a Jewish prophet to come onto the scene
2,000 years ago saying, "the rule of God has arrived"? - Right. - Has God not been ruling? - Well, and it's helpful because
it's a word we still use. - And it's a word we still use to rule. - I don't go around really
talking about kingdoms. - Yeah and even rule or reign. It's not like you wouldn't, like a manager doesn't reign the office. - Who's in charge here? - We would say, who's in charge? - Who's the boss? - Yep, yep, yep. - So N.T. Wright paraphrases, "running the show" or, yeah, in charge. - Okay. - Yeah, so, which just
begged much of questions. So what does it mean for the reign of God to arrive in Jesus? - Right. And how would a Jewish
person perceive that? - That's right. And so there, I think we have to go back to just the biblical story and the Kingdom of God
is one of these themes that runs from page one
to the very last page, literally from page one to the second to last paragraph of the Bible. - Nice. - So it gives us. - So this is truly a theme
that runs through the Bible. - Yeah. (upbeat music) A good Bible trivia fact, great at parties to know,
What's the first time, Where's the first time
that the word rule or reign or anything to do with a king or reigning appears in the Bible? - Yeah. - I guess I've already given it away. - You have, but if I hadn't
looked at your notes, I probably would've guessed. I'm looking at your notes though now. And so I'm. - It's ruined.
- It's ruined. - It's all right, there's one more. There is one more Bible trivia fact, but I won't reveal to you yet. So yeah, where in the Bible is the first time the idea of
ruling or reigning appears? Page one. Or in some bibles, the way the page might be formatted, page two. And it's closely connected
to the image of God. So.
- The idea of reigning, yes. - The idea of reigning, yeah. So God makes a really good
world, full of potential. It's exploding with potential in life. And near the culmination of
Genesis 1 is the famous line, "God created mankind in his own image. "In the image of God, "He created him, male and
female, he created them. "God blessed them, said to them, "'Be fruitful and increase in number, "'fill the earth and subdue it. "'Rule over the fish in the sea, "'the birds in the sky, "'every other living creature
that moves on the ground.'" So that word rule, it's one of the standard
Hebrew words for what kings do, to rule or to reign. - It's not the word kingdom. - It's not the word kingdom. No, but it's, so in studying biblical themes, you need to be sensitive
to not just assuming. - Note the word studies. - Yeah, theme studies are
distinct from word studies. So an idea can be represented
by lots of different words or even metaphors. So the idea can be present even if. - But if the word kingdom
kind of means the verb rule. - That's right.
- There's another word that also means rule. - Yes, yeah, there's multiple, there's probably about
three different verbs that describe the act of
ruling or reigning as a king. And they all have different nuances. But this one has to do with ruling, having an authority to oversee and to steward and manage. - Does it have kind of
kingly connotations? - Yes, so yeah, that's why the word rule, it's a great translation
because to say rule, you're like, who uses that word? Like, that's not what
your boss does at Subway. He doesn't rule the place, or, so that's a verb, and even in English, that, we think of someone in a
state of governing authority. That's what we use the word rule for. And that's similar here. So it's depicting humans
as having some royal task. And that connects back
to the image of God. So here's the big question. Do we do a quick movement on
the image of God in this video? - We did that before. - We did that quickly one, but this would be to bring
out a different nuance of it. So that's Genesis 1 and
not just the chapter. - Did we ever talk about just
doing a video on image of God? - Yeah, you know, I thought so and then I looked in our theme videos. - Well, I know it's on the list. I think we had discussed it before. - Yeah, we had, I think, it's actually will be wrapped
up in the new humanity. - All right. - I think that we're doing
something on new humanity. - Right.
- Isn't that one? Yeah, so that'll be that one. - So when you say it's a royal task, I mean, I don't even
really understand royalty in kingdoms that well, but yeah, it seems like that had a certain very special meaning, royal. - Yes, it does. Yes, so let's look at Psalm 8, and then let's think
about the image of God. And then this all comes together in a really, I think, profound way. So Psalm 8 is a poetic
reflection on Genesis 1 and specifically humanity's
role in the world. So Psalm 8:4 begins with this line, "What is mankind that
you are mindful of him? "What's humanity that you care for him? "You've made him a little
lower than the angels." - Which is pretty awesome. - Right, so that's reflecting on this, that human beings are made out of dirt. So we're earthlings. - Yeah.
- Literally. But there's also something
transcendent or sacred. - Right?
- Right. So the biologists call this what? An emergent form, something. This is physics, an emergent form where, in evolutionary development, there are these leaps that happen where the complexity of a form isn't reducible to any one cause, but to multiple factors. And it's a new entity. It's not just a- - A lot of people think
of consciousness that way. - That's right.
- Exactly right. So, and, it doesn't mean we
can't trace the development, but it does mean at some
point it stops being a whole bunch of the things
from the previous stage and it is a new genuine
thing in its own right. So what am I talking about? - Yeah, that we're dust, but- - That's right. - There's something else there. - There's something other. - Other than dust.
- About humans. So in Genesis 1, that's
reflected there as image of God and Genesis 2, it's called the divine breath
that animates the humans. But it's this, the humans are a mix of Heaven and Earth, it would be the Bible's
way of talking about it. And so they're crowned, and
notice immediately it goes, they're crowned with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your
hands and everything. So crowned image, I mean. - Yes. - Crowned.
- Crowned as a king. - And rulers. So here's the. - Under your feet, that's a very royal. - On your feet, yeah, that's right. - Yeah, it's of being on a throne with having like a footstool or an image of, again, of authority. So here's, within the
narrative world of Genesis 1, God is the creator King. He speaks, things happen. He makes a people who are
going to live under his reign. He makes these people in a certain way and gives them a unique role. They are the image of God. And traditionally, in Western history, image of God has been
studied as some trait that makes humans unique from animals. - Like our ethics or- - Our ability to forgive relationship or covenant or the-
- Cognitive ability. - Intellect, consciousness,
something like that. So by far, the consensus in biblical studies, like you'll read commentaries, is that the meaning of "the
image of God" is anchored one, in Genesis 1, the way the sentence is put together. But two, in its ancient
Near Eastern context. I don't know if we have
time to go into this, but it's interesting. Then God said, "Let us make humanity in our
image after our likeness. "And let them have dominion
over the fish of the sea." So in Hebrew, there's no periods. So let's take out that period. "Let us make humans in our
image after our likeness and let them rule or
let them have dominion." So in the first time
the image of God is used, it's directly connected to something. - To reigning.
- To reigning. So humans are the way
that God reigns the world. So it's a very interesting
narrative beginning, the image of God is
something that humans are, and somethings humans do. They embody and image God's
rule and reign over the world. And so that's how the
narrative of the Bible sets up, is that God's plan was to
share his world with humans and to have his reign and his rule, and his will be brought about in the world through human beings. So, which really opened, if you start thinking through
the stories of the Bible, there are very few stories
where God acts or does anything that doesn't happen through a human. So even think of the Exodus, like the parting of the Red Sea. But if you were just an Israel looking on, you would see Moses with
his staff over the waters. So the way the God of the Bible works is through image-bearing human beings. And that's how God reigns
the world through humans. And humans. So this is the ancient context, is that the word "image" refers to statue. - Right. - And it is used to refer to idol statues in Israel's history. So Israel was not supposed to ever make images to represent God. - But they were warned. - But the Bible begins
with God making image of God's own self in humans. Most of the large scale, like large statues that have
survived from the ancient world are images of gods or kings. And specifically Egyptian and Assyrian and Babylonian kings were considered, viewed themselves in their cultures as deities. And so in Egyptian, the
phrase "image of God" is used, but only ever to describe
the king as the image of God. And it's the same in ancient
Assyrian and Babylonian. - Wow, so there's this very
kind of flattening democratic kind of thing happening at
the beginning of Genesis. - Yeah, so this is what's cool. It's so, Genesis 1, I think, is intentionally
making a charged statement in today that- - Not just kings. - Being the image of God is not something that only the elite do,
but rather it's a reality that all human beings are. And you see that in the narrative. Humanity as a whole is given this task to rule and to reign. It's all humanity. Which is why in Genesis 9, image of God is connected
to the sacredness of all human life then. So if someone murders another human, if you shed blood by
your blood shall be shed, because humans are made
in the image of God. So the point is that all humans are these. - There isn't classes. - There isn't classes, yeah, within the narrative world of the Bible, there's just humans who image God, and humans have this royal task. - And I guess that's not
very scandalous for like- - For modern westerners.
- Modern westerners. - No, what's scandalous is
that this is a biblical idea. Like, that's where the idea comes from. It's not something we have received from- - It wasn't a Greek idea. - Not a Greek idea. Certainly wasn't an Eastern idea. It's a Jewish Christian idea that humans are sacred
because they were made. - And in this moment, it was
a very revolutionary idea. - Yeah. So I think, wrapping all this together, I think Genesis 1, the first time, the idea of reigning or ruling or of God reigning or ruling in the Bible. No, of anybody, actually God reigning, that's the other trivia question. So the first time, the word or the concept of
ruling or reigning appears it's humans ruling or
reigning over creation. And it's tied to their nature
as made in God's image. So God's the King. He's reigned, but the Bible begins with
God sharing that rule and asking humans to embody that rule and reign over creation. So it's tied to the human
project of humans managing and ruling the world on God's behalf. (upbeat music) - The video for the Kingdom
of God will be up on YouTube before the end of the
year, December 2015. That's what we're shooting for. The rest of this conversation will be in the next two episodes. In the next episode, we talk about what went
wrong with the Kingdom of God and then God's plan to fix it. You can follow us on Facebook, facebook.com/JointheBibleProject. We're also on Twitter @JoinBibleProj. And all of our videos,
which we're really proud of, short animated films that trace a theme all the way through Scripture and also short films that walk through the literary structure of books of the Bible, those are all on our
YouTube channel for free at youtube.com/theBibleProject. (upbeat music) If you like this podcast, you can help us by sharing it
and putting a review on iTunes or whatever podcasting service you use. That'd be great, we'd like that. Thanks for being a part of this with us. (upbeat music) ♪ Should the wicked man remain ♪ ♪ Bring you loneliness and pain ♪ ♪ I'll defend you to the grave ♪ ♪ I'll remind you of the day ♪ ♪ You were just a boy ♪ ♪ Trying to pretend ♪ ♪ Pleasing all your mentors ♪ ♪ Though never quite convinced ♪ ♪ Now you are much older ♪ ♪ Free to skip the test ♪ ♪ Now it's time to rest ♪
