Jesus' Twofold Teaching About the Kingdom of God

Barry D. Smith

Jesus' Twofold Teaching About the Kingdom of God
Format
Hardback
Publisher
Sheffield Phoenix Press
Country
United Kingdom
Published
31 May 2009
Pages
328
ISBN
9781906055684

Jesus’ Twofold Teaching About the Kingdom of God

Barry D. Smith

Recent research on Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God has in common the assumption that it remains the same throughout the time of his proclamation of it. The data that cannot be harmonized are usually judged to be inauthentic, originating from Christian prophets in the early church. Smith shows in closely argued detail how essential it is to differentiate two historical contexts for Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God. The nature of the Kingdom of God is conditional upon its acceptance and the acceptance of its messenger-which is to say, Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God is hypothetical. This is the non-rejection context of Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God. But some of Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God presupposes a context of the rejection of his message by the majority of Jews and especially the Jewish authorities. In this new context, Jesus teaches that the Kingdom will still come but not in the way first delineated, in the non-rejection context. This can be called the rejection context of Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God. No attempt should be made to assimilate all the data into one historical context. Distinguishing two contexts for Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God allows us to appreciate how Jesus modifies his teaching in the light of the rejection of the Kingdom. Without this differentiation of two historical contexts, it is impossible to make sense of Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God.

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