The Kingdom of God: A Biblical Theology (Biblical Theology for Life)
Overview
The Kingdom of God by Nicholas Perrin explores the contours of the kingdom by answer the important ‘what,’ ‘who,’ and ‘how’ questions. This comprehensive study brings together careful exegesis of the Old and New Testaments with thoughtful attention to how the kingdom-ethic applies to God’s subjects today.
In the last hundred and fifty years the kingdom of God has emerged as one of the most important topics in theology, New Testament studies, and the life of the church. But what exactly is the kingdom of God? What does it mean for the people of God and what does it mean for how they live in the world?
In The Kingdom of God, part of the Biblical Theology for Life series, Nicholas Perrin explores this dominant biblical metaphor, one that is paradoxically the meta-center and the mystery in Jesus’ proclamation. After survey interpretations by figures from Ritschl to N. T. Wright, Perrin examines the “what, who, and how” questions of the kingdom. In his sweepingly comprehensive study, Perrin contends that the kingdom is inaugurated in Jesus’ earthly ministry, but its final development awaits later events in history. In between the times, however, the people of God are called to participate in the reign of God by living out the distinctly kingdom-ethic through hope, forgiveness, love, and prayer.
- Explores the dominant biblical metaphor of the kingdom
- Surveys various interpretations by Christian theologians
- Brings together careful exegesis of the Old and New Testaments
Part 1: Queueing the Questions
- The Kingdom: The Meta-center and Mystery of Jesus’ Proclamation
Part 2: Arriving at Answers The “What” Question
- Yahweh the Creator God is King
- The Covenantal Structure of Yahweh’s Kingdom
- Yahweh’s Kingdom as a Dynamic, Eschatological Reality
- The Kingdom in the Preaching of John the Baptizer
- The Lord’s Prayer and the Essence of the Kingdom (Matt 6:9-13)
- The Christological Character of the Kingdom: Present Signs of the Kingdom
- The Future Advent of the Kingdom
- The Kingdom and Ethics The “Who” Question
- Kingdom of Sons and Daughters
- Kingdom of Priests
- Kingdom of the Poor The “How” Question
- Defining Feature of the Kingdom: Suffering (Mark 8—10)
- Defining Values of the Kingdom
- Defining Activities of the Kingdom: Prayer and Meals
- Defining Commitments of the Kingdom: The Overriding
Part 3: Reflecting on the Relevance
- Living the Kingdom Life Today
Top Highlights
“Against these options, I will argue that the kingdom of God is a liturgical reality rooted in creation, given expression in human history through the successive covenants, and decisively actualized through John the Baptizer and then Jesus.” (Page 33)
“In my view, the case for a covenant of creation is compelling.” (Page 58)
“As Harvard’s Ron Heifetz puts it, ‘Leadership is the art of disappointing people at a rate they can stand.’3” (Page 26)
“For now, at the close of this chapter, we could describe ‘kingdom’ this way: Creationally engaged, universally focused, and eschatologically oriented, the kingdom of God is a transcendent sphere of reality that conspires with a community of human image-bearers in the task of restoring creation to the worship of the one true creator God.” (Page 52)
“I am willing to speculate that the closest we come is the Lord’s Prayer. There we will discover that the kingdom is not just something that God ‘does’; nor is it, on the other extreme, something that humanity ‘does.’ Instead, the kingdom is something God has done, is doing, and will do, even as Jesus’s followers ‘do the kingdom’ by participating in its reality. ‘How’ and ‘Why’ are where the rubber hits the road—how we live in the kingdom and why we do so.” (Pages 35–36)
In this in-depth but very readable book, Nicholas Perrin offers compelling insight after compelling insight into the nature of the kingdom of God, King Jesus, and the people of the kingdom. Perrin enriches our understanding of the kingdom, especially concerning its deep Old Testament roots, but he also calls us to greater kingdom living-even if that entails suffering.
Michael J. Gorman, St. Mary’s Seminary & University
Avoiding both oversimplification and hyper-technicality, Perrin addresses a wide sweep of questions and issues regarding Jesus’s central message ... and continuing mission, through the church and beyond. “The work of understanding the kingdom of God is a holy obligation” the author writes, and this volume furnishes essential resources. Informed by discussion across the sweep of Christian tradition (and sometimes secular punditry), Perrin effectively marshals his Gospels expertise to produce an incisive study of a controversial topic. I believe the ways he maps challenges and arrives at proposals will not only enhance understanding but also deepen Christians' daily petition to the Father: “Your kingdom come.”
—Robert W. Yarbrough, professor of New Testament, Covenant Theological Seminary
- Title: The Kingdom of God: A Biblical Theology
- Author: Nicholas Perrin
- Editor: Jonathan Lunde
- Series: Biblical Theology for Life
- Publisher: Zondervan
- Publication Date: 2019
- Pages: 272
- Resource Type: Biblical Theology
- Topic: Theology
Nicholas Perrin, PhD, is dean of Wheaton College Graduate School and Franklin S. Dyrness Professor of Biblical Studies. Between 2000 and 2003, he was research assistant for N.T. Wright and has since authored and edited numerous articles and books, including Thomas and Tatian (Society of Biblical Literature / Brill); Thomas: The Other Gospel (Westminster John Knox); Lost in Transmission: What We Can Know about the Words of Jesus (Thomas Nelson); and Jesus the Temple (SPCK; Baker Academic), the first of a three-part trilogy on the historical Jesus. He is also coeditor of the recently revised edition of Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (InterVarsity).