Extending the Kingdom of God?
Andrew Perriman made the effort to clarify some ambiguous usages of terms like New creation, Spirit, blessing and the Kingdom of God, in which he argues that:
the New Testament tells a longer story that culminates in the vindication or justification of the Son of man community against the pagan imperial powers that opposed it – that is, against Rome. But the main point to grasp is that the ‘kingdom’ language defines not the missional practice of the church but the action of God to safeguard the integrity and autonomy of his new creation people, not least when they come under attack from the nations and cultures that surround them. The kingdom is not something that the church builds but something that was announced. When Jesus teaches his disciples to pray ‘Your kingdom come…’, what he has in mind is not the mission of the church but the coming transformation of Israel’s circumstances – the defeat of Israel’s oppressors, the restoration of the people, and the giving of the kingdom to the Son of man.
Read it all here.