The Kingdom of Jesus
4/5
()
About this ebook
Jesus never stopped talking about the Kingdom of God. So why is it that the church has so rarely taught it?
The Kingdom of Jesus unpacks this rich topic, dispelling popular myths about the Kingdom and showing how its message is as relevant to the 21st century church as it was in Jesus’ day.
Roger Forster takes us through ten alternative popular views of what the Kingdom could mean, demonstrating how these concepts can sometimes obscure the radical nature of the message. Dispensing with these views, he then unravels the depths and complexities of major Old and New Testament texts to proclaim the radical challenge of the message of Jesus.
Foreword by Professor Dr Rob George.
Roger Forster
Roger studied mathematics and theology at St John's College Cambridge. After a period in the Royal Air Force, he worked as an itinerant evangelist before starting Ichthus in 1974. Roger was one of the founders of March for Jesus, was on the board of the AD2000 Movement and the Council of the Evangelical Missionary Alliance for many years. He has been involved with the Evangelical Alliance since the early 1970s as a member of the Council, and has served on a number of EA committees.Among his many responsibilities he is Chairman of the Council for the UK Evangelical Alliance and honorary Vice President of Tearfund, and is honoured to be on the Council of Reference for Aglow International (Britain), and together with Faith is a patron of Springs Dance Company. In 1974 Faith and Roger Forster founded the Ichthus Christian Fellowship, which they co-lead, and currently comprises 15 London congregations, a network of 80 UK link churches and workers overseas in approximately 16 nations. Roger and Faith have three married children and four grandchildren. Roger has authored and co-authored several books, including God's Strategy in Human History, Reason Science and Faith, Christianity Evidence and Truth, The Kingdom of Jesus, Prayer, Trinity, Suffering and the Love of God and Women and the Kingdom. ichthus.org.uk
Read more from Roger Forster
God's Strategy in Human History: Volume 2: Reconsidering Key Biblical Ideas Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Prayer - Living in the Breath of God Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGod's Strategy in Human History: Volume 1: God's Path to Victory Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Women and the Kingdom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSuffering and the Love of God Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Kingdom of Jesus
Related ebooks
The Righteous Believer: A Biblical Perspective of Your Right Standing in Christ Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Kingdom of God Continues Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKing Jesus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGo Witness! A Practical Guide To Neighborhood Evangelism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Call to Follow Jesus: Studies in the Gospel of Mark: From the Series Kingdom Living in a Twisted World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKingdom Citizens Deluxe Edition (6 Mini-Books in 1): Precepts for Victorious Kingdom Living Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTHE LAYING ON OF HANDS Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKingdom Christian: Living in the Kingdom of God here on Earth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Pentecostal Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBible Understanding Made Easy (Vol 2): Volume 2: Matthew's Gospel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNaturally Supernatural Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKings & Priests Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gospel of the Kingdom of God Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKingdom Living: A Powerful Daily Devotional Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKingdom Advancing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsExploring the Kingdom of God and our Salvation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiving in the Kingdom of God: A Biblical Theology for the Life of the Church Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLife in the Kingdom, Book 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDiscipleship Commission Mission: Journey to Destiny Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Better Covenant Commentary: Acts-Revelation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHomebrew Churches: Re-conceiving the Church for Tomorrow’s Children Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe King And His Army (Ern Baxter) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gospel as Social Revolution: The Role of the Church in the Transformation of Society Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCharacter: Made in the Image of God Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Face of the Father Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Kingdom of God Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Now What? Baptism in the Holy Spirit Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Kingdom of God Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat is the Kingdom of God? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPutting on the Lord Jesus: A Gospel-Driven Theology of Discipleship Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Christianity For You
The Book of Enoch Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reflections on the Psalms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bible Recap: A One-Year Guide to Reading and Understanding the Entire Bible Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex: Creating a Marriage That's Both Holy and Hot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Screwtape Letters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't Give the Enemy a Seat at Your Table: It's Time to Win the Battle of Your Mind... Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Winning the War in Your Mind: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Four Loves Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mere Christianity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Imagine Heaven: Near-Death Experiences, God's Promises, and the Exhilarating Future That Awaits You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Winning the War in Your Mind Workbook: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boundaries Updated and Expanded Edition: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Your Brain's Not Broken: Strategies for Navigating Your Emotions and Life with ADHD Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wild at Heart Expanded Edition: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Law of Connection: Lesson 10 from The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Lead When You're Not in Charge: Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Boundaries and Goodbyes: Loving Others Without Losing the Best of Who You Are Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Story: The Bible as One Continuing Story of God and His People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Changes That Heal: Four Practical Steps to a Happier, Healthier You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boundaries Workbook: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Kingdom of Jesus
1 rating0 reviews
Book preview
The Kingdom of Jesus - Roger Forster
The Kingdom of Jesus
The radical challenge of the message of Jesus
Roger Forster
Foreword by Professor Andrew Walker
Second edition published by PUSH Publishing,
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2001 Roger Forster
The right of Roger Forster to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Scripture, unless otherwise stated is taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®,
Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 By the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Cover design and typesetting by Joseph Laycock
Discover other PUSH Publishing titles at Smashwords.com:
PUSH Publishing on Smashwords
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
www.pushpublishing.co.uk
Contents
Foreword by Professor Andrew Walker
Introduction
1. The Centrality of the Kingdom
2. Interpretations of the Kingdom
3. The Kingdom of God and of Heaven as revealed in the Old Testament
4. The Kingdom According to Jesus
5. The Politics of the Kingdom
6. The Kingdom and Holy War
7. The Son of Man and His Kingdom
8. The Fruit of the Kingdom – The Sermon on the Mount
9. The Gospel of the Kingdom
10. The King’s Jubilee
Foreword
by Professor Andrew Walker
One of the tragedies for the Church in the modern world has been the split between activists and the academicians, the doers and the reflectivists, the pragmatists and the intellectuals. This bifurcation at its worst leads to a) cynicism on the part of the intelligentsia who stand on the sidelines of church life finding fault and blame in every activity and human effort but contributing nothing to building up the Body of Christ, and b) frantic and frenetic energy dissipated by the ‘movers’ of religious life who seek to shake-off sound scholarship as if it were a hair-shirt hindering the free activity of the Holy Spirit.
There have of course been honourable exceptions to this Christian schizophrenia. Jonathan Edwards was a revivalist, a Reformed theologian and a proto psychologist. Charles Wesley was a consummate creator of demotic hymnody and a patristic scholar at Oxford. In the mid 20th century CS Lewis combined a fellowship at Oxford in medieval literature with a commitment to writing popular works of Christian apologetics and tales of imagination for both children and adults.
In our own day, however, we find few men or women who can overcome the separation between head and heart, between thought and action, between practice and theory. One such person is the author of this inspirational book on the Kingdom of Jesus, Roger Forster. Perhaps best known in the evangelical world as the leader and founder of Ichthus Christian Fellowship, a radical network of charismatic Christians in London, Roger, in partnership with his wife Faith, has been at the forefront of revivalistic enterprises literally for decades. To think of Charismatic Renewal, Spring Harvest, and the Evangelical Alliance, is to recall that Roger has been in the midst of them. Conjure-up the ‘Marches for Jesus’ in the 1990s and one finds that Roger helped lead them. Talk of ‘Toronto’ and Roger can tell you he has been in and out of it. Raise the controversial issue of ‘restored apostles’ and Roger can show that he has been in conversation with Restorationists over such claims for years. Imagine ‘New Church’, and Roger is the embodiment of it.
Yet amazingly this tireless activist for God, this evangelist, this builder of churches, has not forgotten the centrality to the Christian life of The Spirit’s renewal of the mind. Since his Cambridge undergraduate days, Roger has never stopped learning, never remained intellectually inert, has always moved on. Consequently, it comes as quite a shock to find that the man who forsook the academy, rolled-up his sleeves, and dirtied his hands with the hard labour of mission remains as I put it in 1985 ‘one of the finest minds in the evangelical constituency...’. Furthermore it is a mind that breaks the mould of conventional evangelical wisdom – one that will not be fettered by dogma or rote. While many of his peers laud the foundational role of the Magisterial Reformers in the Protestant Revolution, Roger feels more at home with the radical reformation of the Anabaptists. As others nail their allegiance to Protestant Truth – denying virtually all Catholic antecedents to evangelical life – Roger empathises with Francis of Assisi, admires the Trinitarian theology of the Cappadocian Fathers of Eastern Orthodoxy, and identifies (increasingly) with much of the work of St Irenaeus of Lyon.
Conversely when Protestant evangelicals do recognise the common Christian tradition by lauding the Blessed Augustine as the defining father of Western theology, and precursor to Calvin, Roger holds him to account for most of the ecclesial and theological errors of the Western Church.
In the last year I have been privileged to work with this man of many parts and constant surprises, by teaching historical and patristic theology to the students attending the radical network course of Ichthus. I have been stunned and excited by their knowledge of biblical truth, church history, theological adventure, and the spirit of freedom in which they are encouraged to think for themselves. Roger’s modus operandi, as a teacher and activist, is to preach, make disciples, engage in biblical exposition, evangelise, trawl the whole Christian tradition for inspiration and substantiation of doctrine, try something new, then offer this unique blend of reflective activism for reappraisal and adjustment.
Much of this moving and maturing theological praxis has not been presented in scholarly tomes, or academic articles (though there are two substantial and extant co-edited works). Roger’s thinking has typically been displayed in literally hundreds of audio tapes, numerous booklets, countless talks and sermons, and through personal contact. In this sense Roger is in the patristic tradition of men who wrote from within the church for the church. Recognition of his significance as an activist/theologian is evident by the fact that his work has recently been the subject of a doctoral dissertation at Leeds University and there are not many professional theologians who could say that!
This present, much needed, reflection on the Kingdom of Jesus is quintessentially Roger: the biblical exegesis reflects echoes of Tom Wright, and the recapitulation doctrine of St Irenaeus lies behind the corporate notion of Christ as embodying humankind as well as being a distinct personality in his own right. And yet the radical Charismatic and the Arminian activist is not extinguished. Roger’s excitement and hope in the Kingdom shines through. He rightly sees the Kingdom as coming from outside the world, and yet recognises it as already interiorised in part by Christians within the present dispensation. But Roger does not follow Calvinist Milton in believing ‘they also serve who only stand and wait’: he is not ‘tarrying’ but remains proactive in working for the final consummation of all things when Christ will be ‘all in all’.
Before Roger leads us into the mystery of the Kingdom a small caveat may help us on our journey: Roger is primarily a gospel teller in the oral tradition. He is not a systematic theologian, a representative of a definitive school of theology, a defensive personality upholding a fixed position at any cost. He is an activist who thinks – sometimes on his feet – but usually on his knees. Consequently this inspiring homily on the Kingdom is not written with the Academy in mind – you will not encounter the buttress of an academic apparatus to support it. What you will find is a message for the churches, presaged through experience, produced from an independent mind, and disseminated with love.
Professor Andrew Walker
King’s College, London
Introduction
Some years ago I was speaking at a college meeting when I was challenged by a Muslim sitting on the front row. He was studying Christian theology in order to destroy it and at the end of the meeting he attacked me verbally. He said, ‘My lecturers cannot tell me what the Kingdom of God is and they imply Jesus didn’t know what it was either.’ He claimed that the Kingdom of God was such a vague concept that it was not worth preaching. In his opinion there was no coherent message – it was just an empty phrase.
The Kingdom of God, it seems, is not easily understood and has become a stumbling block for some. In the 1980s, there was an orthodox Jewish theologian called Pinchas Lapide who said he believed Jesus was raised from the dead. He maintained that the evidence for the resurrection was overwhelming and should convince anyone, but he did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah because he did not think that Jesus brought in the Kingdom.
The Church is taught to pray, ‘Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,’ and for 2000 years Christians have prayed this prayer. But when asked, they are not at all sure of the content of their request. Do we know what we are praying for? Can we explain it to a Muslim or a Jew? Evangelical Christians are strong in their proclamation of the new birth, to be sure, but understanding it in the context of the Kingdom is vital. Unless a man or woman is born again they cannot see – or enter – the Kingdom (John 3:3). The Kingdom is the very purpose and sphere for which people are born again.
People have often asked me to write something about what on earth this Kingdom of God is! I have been studying, reflecting on and trying to practise the Kingdom for many years. In the process, I have read much academic literature produced over the last couple of centuries, and trawled through church history to see how theologians have tried to understand the meaning of the Kingdom. In this book,