Kingdom of God – Practical Theology Today

Salt and Light: The Town Just Ahead

The first time I drove across the prairies at night, I learned that a town’s lights can be deceptive.

Far ahead, on the horizon, a small glow appeared. It looked close – just over the next rise, perhaps. But mile after mile of road passed beneath me. The lights remained ahead of me, steady and unmistakable, while the town itself was still far away.

A city on a hill can do that. Long before you arrive, its light tells you that someone is there.

That may be part of the force of the words Jesus spoke in Matthew 5:13–16: You are the salt of the earth. … You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.

Jesus had just finished the Beatitudes. He described those who were blessed in God’s kingdom: the poor in spirit, the merciful, the peacemakers, those who hungered and thirsted for righteousness. Then, as he turned to his followers, he told them what this kind of life meant beyond the hillside where they were listening.

“You are salt. You are light.”

Not, “Try harder until you become salt and light.” Not, “Make yourself more visible.” Jesus spoke in the present tense. He named what his people were becoming because they belonged to him and to his kingdom.

An important detail is hidden by English translations: the “you” was plural. Jesus was not handing each person a private assignment in spiritual influence. He was speaking to a people – his followers.

That mattered. A single lamp could light a room, but a city’s glow came from many lamps, many homes, many lives gathered in one place. Jesus imagined a people whose shared life would become visible.

What Followed the Beatitudes

Within the Sermon, the salt-and-light discourse was a hinge, carrying Jesus’ listeners from the Beatitudes into his unfolding vision of kingdom righteousness.

The Beatitudes describe what kingdom-shaped people look like. Salt and light showed what happened when that kind of life entered the world. The rest of the sermon gives the picture greater detail: reconciliation instead of contempt, truthfulness instead of manipulation, mercy instead of retaliation, even love for enemies.

In other words, Jesus was not calling his followers to a vague kind of cultural influence. He was describing a life so different that it became recognizable.

As N. T. Wright observes, Jesus’ language echoed Israel’s calling to be God’s light for the world. Jesus gave his followers a share in that vocation.¹ They were to embody God’s arriving kingdom in the places where they lived.

Salt That Still Tastes Like Salt

Salt carried several associations in the ancient world. It flavored food (Job 6:6), and it was part of Israel’s worship: every grain offering was to include “the salt of the covenant” (Lev. 2:13; cf. Ezek. 43:24). Numbers referred explicitly to an “everlasting covenant of salt” (Num. 18:19; cf. 2 Chron. 13:5), language that evoked permanence and faithful covenant relationship with God.

Jesus may have allowed those associations to echo in the background, but his warning kept the main point close at hand: salt had to remain salt.

“If the salt loses its saltiness,” he asked, “how can it be made salty again?”

The image is not merely about Christians making the world better. It is about remaining distinctively faithful. Salt that has become useless cannot do what salt is for.

That is an uncomfortable question for any Christian body. We can be active, vocal, busy, and even admired, while gradually taking on the same habits Jesus confronted: contempt, dishonesty, retaliation, status-seeking, indifference to a neighbor’s need.

His point was not to make his followers strange for strangeness’ sake. It was to keep the character of the kingdom.

Mont Saint-Michel off the coast of Normandy, France

A Light for the World

Jesus then gave his second image: “You are the light of the world.”

The words echoed Isaiah’s expansive vision of God’s light reaching the nations: God’s instruction would go out from Zion and bring peace (Isa. 2:2–5); the servant would bring justice and become “a light for the nations” (Isa. 42:1–7); and God’s salvation would reach “to the ends of the earth” (Isa. 49:6). Isaiah called God’s people to “walk in the light of the Lord” (Isa. 2:5) and portrayed the nations coming to God’s light and glory (Isa. 60:1–3).

Jesus then said something astonishing: his followers shared in that vocation. Their light was not their own brilliance. It was the reflected brightness of a life shaped by Jesus.

That was why the image of the city was so fitting. Jesus did not say that every believer had to become famous. He said that a city set on a hill could not be hidden. The point was not celebrity. It was presence.

A people who forgive, practice mercy, welcome the overlooked, tell the truth, seek peace, and love their neighbors will become visible – irresistibly visible. Their life will tell the world that another kingdom is possible.

Jesus then narrowed the image from city lights on the horizon to a lamp in a house. Nobody would light a lamp and put it under a bowl. A lamp was placed on its stand, where it gave light to everyone in the house.

Light is meant to help someone see. It is meant to make a place more livable. It serves the people nearby.

Perhaps that is a good test for our witness. Does our presence make it easier for our neighbors to see the goodness of God? Does it bring more clarity, mercy, justice, courage, reconciliation, and hope?

Or does it mostly draw attention to us?

Jesus ended with the purpose of it all: “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

The goal is not that people would be impressed by Christians. The goal is that they would catch a glimpse of the Father. Like a town glowing across the prairie, the church is meant to be a sign that there is life ahead – a place of light, welcome, and hope.

The question is not simply whether we are visible. It is whether, when people see us, they can see the Father.

¹N. T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1–15 (London: SPCK, 2004), discussion of Matthew 5:13–20.

Family Resemblance

“You must be here for Remy.”

Our grandson, Ephraim – Remy to everyone in the family – just turned thirteen. When he was younger, everyone said he was my “spitting image.”

I remember one Sunday when he was about four or five. We were visiting Remy and his family and had attended church with them. After worship, I volunteered to pick him up from Sunday School. I was prepared to explain to the Sunday School “gatekeeper” who I was and why it was okay for me to take him.

Before I could say a word, she looked at me and said, “Oh, you must be here for Remy.” Apparently, no explanation was necessary. She recognized the family resemblance.

I wonder if Jesus had something like that in mind when he said: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5:9)

What if peacemaking is one of the ways God’s children become recognizable?

What does a peacemaker actually make?

The word Jesus used for “peacemaker,” written in Greek by Matthew, is eirēnopoios. It is a compound of eirēnē, “peace,” and poieō, “to make” or “do.” That’s worth noticing. ¹

Jesus didn’t say, “Blessed are those who love peace,” or even, “Blessed are the peaceful.”

He said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” There is something active about the word.

And what kind of peace did Jesus have in mind?

His Jewish listeners would have heard eirēnē through the rich Hebrew concept of shalom. Shalom meant much more than the absence of conflict. It carried the idea of wholeness, well-being, flourishing, and restored relationships.

Peace, in other words, isn’t simply what happens when people stop fighting. Peace is what happens when what is broken begins to be made whole.

That changes the picture considerably.

Peacemakers aren’t necessarily peacekeepers

There’s an important difference between keeping the peace and making peace.

A peacekeeper may be primarily concerned with stopping the conflict. Keep things quiet. Don’t rock the boat. Avoid the difficult conversation. Preserve the appearance of harmony.

A peacemaker wants something deeper. A peacemaker moves toward what is broken with the hope of restoration.

Sometimes that means listening. Sometimes forgiving. Sometimes telling the truth. Sometimes confronting injustice. Sometimes having the conversation everyone would rather avoid.

Biblical peacemaking isn’t built on pretending that everything is fine. Jeremiah confronted those who proclaimed, “Peace, peace,” when there was no peace (Jer. 6:14; 8:11). Jesus told his followers to pursue reconciliation with those they had offended (Matt. 5:23–24).

A peacemaker isn’t someone uncomfortable with conflict.

A peacemaker is someone who is committed to what lies on the other side of conflict: reconciliation, wholeness, and shalom.

“They will be called children of God.”

This, I think, is where Jesus’ Beatitude becomes especially interesting.

The Greek word translated “children” in the NIV is huioi, literally “sons.” In the ancient world, being identified as someone’s son communicated more than family status. It also communicated identity, representation, and resemblance.

Children look like their parents.

Sometimes it’s physical. Sometimes it’s in their mannerisms. Sometimes it’s in the way they talk, laugh, or respond to people.

And sometimes it’s in their character.

Jesus makes this connection explicit just a few verses later. After telling his followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them, he says, “that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

Why love enemies?

Because that’s what the Father is like.

God’s children begin to look like their Father.

And what does the Father look like?

He is a God who makes peace. As the visible expression of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), Jesus showed us what the Father looks like. And Jesus was a peacemaker.

Paul described what God had done through Christ this way: God was reconciling all things to himself, “making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Colossians 1:20). The verb Paul used there is the related Greek word eirēnopoieō – to make peace.

When we participate in peacemaking work – when we move toward reconciliation, when we refuse retaliation, when we seek wholeness rather than simply winning – we begin to look like him.

Family resemblance

Maybe that’s why Jesus didn’t say, “Blessed are the people who keep things peaceful.”

He said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Because peacemaking is more than a behavior. It is evidence of an identity.

God is at work making all things new. His Kingdom is breaking into a world fractured by hostility, resentment, injustice, and fear. And the people who surrender themselves to that Kingdom begin participating in what God is doing.

They become people who make peace. Not perfectly. Not easily. And certainly not without cost.

But increasingly, they look like their Father.

And perhaps that’s what Jesus meant when he said they would be called children of God. Not simply that God gives them a title. Not that peacemaking earns them a place in the family. Rather…

…their lives begin to make the family resemblance visible.

The Sunday School teacher didn’t need me to explain who I was. She saw Remy in me.

I wonder what people see when they look at us.

When we’re hurt. When we’re angry. When someone disagrees with us. When relationships break down. When we’re given the opportunity to retaliate – or reconcile.

Do they see someone who simply wants to keep the peace? Or do they see someone willing to enter the broken places and work toward shalom?

Because every time God’s peace passes through human hands, the family resemblance becomes a little easier to see.

¹ See Woodworking and God’s Poiema focused on Ephesians 2:10: For we are [God’s] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do. The root Greek word for workmanship is poiema – it describes God’s creative activity. It’s the word from which poem and poetry are derived.

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)

Sooner or later, there comes a hush in every person’s life – that moment when the unthinkable happens and we are left alone with our thoughts.

What then?

What happens when the phone call comes? When the diagnosis is confirmed? When someone we love is suddenly gone? When a relationship cannot be repaired? When the future we had carefully imagined disappears before our eyes?

We grieve.

When Grief Finds a Voice

Grief is the internal experience of loss. It is what happens within us when something – or someone – we deeply value is taken away. Grief can leave us exhausted, disoriented, angry, numb, confused, or unable to imagine life ever feeling normal again.

Mourning is something slightly different.

If grief is the inward experience of loss, mourning is the outward expression of that grief. We grieve within; we mourn when we give our grief a voice. Mourning happens when sorrow finds expression through tears, lament, prayer, silence, stories, rituals, or simply the willingness to admit:

Something precious has been lost, and life will never be quite the same.

In our culture, grief is often treated as something private – something to process quietly and eventually move beyond. We may be given permission to grieve for a while, but sooner or later there can be an unspoken expectation that we will get back to normal.

The biblical world understood mourning differently.

Throughout Scripture, mourning was visible, embodied, and often communal. People tore their clothes, wore sackcloth, sat in ashes, fasted, wept aloud, and gathered together in sorrow. Their mourning was not hidden or hurried. It created space to acknowledge that something was terribly wrong.

When Jacob believed Joseph had died, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourned for many days (Genesis 37:34–35). When David learned that Saul and Jonathan had been killed, he composed a public lament and invited the people to join him in remembering what had been lost (2 Samuel 1:17–27). When Nehemiah heard that Jerusalem remained broken and its gates had been burned, he sat down and wept. For days, he mourned, fasted, and prayed (Nehemiah 1).

Biblical mourning was brutal honesty. It was the refusal to pretend that everything was fine when everything was not fine.

Blessed Are the Mourners?

Perhaps that is why Jesus included mourning among the Beatitudes.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

Once again, Jesus’ words sound strange to us.

We naturally assume that the blessed life is the life untouched by sorrow – the life in which our families remain healthy, our relationships flourish, our plans succeed, and tragedy keeps its distance. We often use the word blessed to describe the moments when life turns out the way we hoped.

But Jesus declared the mourners blessed.

The Greek word translated “mourn” is pentheō. It describes deep sorrow or grief that is openly expressed. Pentheō carries the sense of lament – the kind of sorrow that can no longer remain hidden.

Jesus was not saying, “Blessed are those who feel sad.” He pronounced blessing upon those willing to face loss and brokenness honestly – those who refused to numb their sorrow, deny their pain, or look away from suffering.

Eugene Peterson paraphrased the Beatitude this way in The Message:

“You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.”

Peterson captured something deeply human in Jesus’ words. Loss has a way of stripping away our illusions of control. When what is most dear to us is gone, our usual explanations may no longer satisfy us. The things we depended upon to make life feel secure suddenly seem fragile.

And there, in the quiet left behind, we may discover that God is not standing at a distance. He draws near. Not with platitudes. Not with easy answers. Not by minimizing our loss or rushing us through our pain.

He meets us in our mourning.

Mourning What Is Broken

But Jesus’ words likely reached beyond the personal grief we experience when we lose someone or something we love.

Throughout Scripture, people mourned not only death but also sin, injustice, oppression, exile, violence, broken relationships, and the consequences of humanity’s rebellion against God. The prophets mourned what had become of Israel. Ezra mourned the people’s unfaithfulness. Nehemiah mourned the broken condition of Jerusalem.

They looked honestly at the world and recognized that it was not as God intended it to be.

Kingdom people do the same. They mourn what sin has done – to themselves, to others, and to God’s good creation.

They mourn when children suffer. They mourn when the vulnerable are exploited. They mourn when violence becomes ordinary. They mourn when power is used to protect the powerful rather than serve the powerless.

Mourning is what happens when we stop looking away.

It is what happens when we allow the suffering of others to affect us. It is what happens when we become honest about our own failures. It is what happens when we remember that the world we experience is not yet the world God intends.

This Beatitude naturally followed the first: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Those who recognize their spiritual poverty also begin to recognize the depth of the brokenness within them and around them. Once we stop pretending that we have everything together, we become free to see more clearly.

And what we see causes us to mourn. Kingdom people have learned to see!

They Will Be Comforted

Yet Jesus did not end the Beatitude with mourning.

“For they will be comforted.”

The comfort Jesus promised was more than reassurance that someday we would feel better. His promise pointed toward the kingdom of God – the restoration of all things.

The prophets had spoken of a day when God would comfort His people, bind up the brokenhearted, rebuild what had been devastated, and exchange their mourning for joy (cf. Isaiah 40:1–2; 61:1–4; Jeremiah 31:13). Jesus announced that this long-awaited kingdom had drawn near.

And one day, everything that causes mourning will be made right.

Until then, Jesus invites his followers neither to deny sorrow nor to be overcome by it. He invites us to bring our grief into the presence of God – to mourn honestly while trusting that sorrow would not have the final word.

Sooner or later, the hush comes for all of us. The unthinkable happens. We find ourselves sitting with questions that have no easy answers. What then?

We mourn. We name what has been lost. We refuse to pretend that everything is fine. We bring our sorrow into the presence of God.

And somewhere within that sacred space, we discover the promise hidden inside this unlikely blessing:

“You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.”

Leaning Into the Beatitudes

A Quick Reminder About “Blessed”

In my previous post, we explored the words ashrei and makarios, the Hebrew and Greek words often translated as “blessed.” We discovered that these words carry far more meaning than a simple description of happiness or good fortune. They point toward a life that is flourishing because it is aligned with God’s purposes and experienced under God’s favor.

That understanding becomes especially important when we come to the Beatitudes.

For many of us, the Beatitudes have been familiar for so long that we no longer hear them. We read them as a list of virtues to acquire or spiritual achievements to pursue. We assume Jesus is giving us a set of character traits that we must develop if we want God’s blessing.

But what if that is not what Jesus was doing?

The Upside-Down Kingdom

It was New Testament scholar George Eldon Ladd who famously described the kingdom of God as an “upside-down kingdom.” Dallas Willard used similar language. The kingdom announced by Jesus often appeared to reverse the values and assumptions of the surrounding world.

The powerful are not necessarily the ones who flourish. The rich are not always the fortunate ones. The successful are not automatically the blessed.

Again and again, Jesus turned conventional wisdom on its head.

Yet perhaps “upside-down” is not quite the best description. From God’s perspective, the kingdom is actually right-side up. It is our world – with its obsession with power, status, wealth, and self-promotion – that has been turned upside down. Jesus came announcing that God’s reign was setting things right.

And remarkably, the right-siding work would happen through ordinary people.

Not celebrities. Not religious elites. Not political insiders.

Ordinary people…

People who mourn.

People who feel spiritually bankrupt.

People who are overlooked.

People who hunger for something better.

People who have been wounded and are trying to show mercy anyway.

When God is in Charge

The Beatitudes describe what life looks like when God is in charge.

Remember Luke describing the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry? In Luke 4, He entered the synagogue in Nazareth and began reading from Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor…” (Luke 4:18)

The passage continues with freedom for captives, sight for the blind, and liberation for the oppressed. Jesus concluded by declaring that this Scripture had been fulfilled in their hearing.

The Isaiah passage ends with a fascinating phrase announcing “the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:19). In a way, Jesus had been describing God’s favorites.

So, when we arrive at the Beatitudes, we hear the same kingdom message. Jesus is identifying the very people upon whom God’s favor rests.

A Different Way to Read the Beatitudes

I want to encourage you to spend some time with the Beatitudes from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase, The Message.

Interestingly, Peterson never set out to write a paraphrase of the New Testament. As a pastor, he found himself continually rephrasing biblical passages in sermons, Bible studies, and conversations so that the people in his congregation could hear them with fresh ears. Over time, those pastoral paraphrases eventually became The Message.

Whether or not you regularly read paraphrases, Peterson often helps familiar passages sound unfamiliar again – and that can be a gift.

The Beatitudes are one of those passages.

Many of us hear “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and immediately begin wondering how to become poor in spirit.

Peterson’s rendering slows us down. It invites us to hear Jesus speaking to real people in real circumstances in their everyday language. With Peterson’s help, instead of sounding like a spiritual checklist, the Beatitudes begin to sound like an announcement.

An Invitation to Listen Again

As we continue our journey through the Sermon on the Mount, I want to encourage you to try a simple practice. Read The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) every day for the next week or two from The Message.

Read it slowly. Read it prayerfully. Read it more than once.

And see what happens.

Eugene Peterson’s Paraphrase of the Beatitudes…

^1-2When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said:

³“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

⁴“You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

⁵“You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are – no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.

⁶“You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.

⁷“You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.

⁸“You’re blessed when you get your inside world – your mind and heart – put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.

⁹“You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.

¹⁰“You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.

^11-12“Not only that – count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens – give a cheer, even! – for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.

Addendum: This is NT Wright’s translation from Matthew for Everyone* – another opportunity to read the familiar in a new way.

³Wonderful news for the poor in spirit! The kingdom of heaven is yours.

⁴Wonderful news for the mourners! You’re going to be comforted.

⁵Wonderful news for the meek! You’re going to inherit the earth.

⁶Wonderful news for people who hunger and thirst for God’s justice! You’re going to be satisfied.

⁷Wonderful news for the merciful! You’ll receive mercy yourselves.

⁸Wonderful news for the pure in heart! You will see God.

⁹Wonderful news for the peacemakers! You’ll be called God’s children.

¹⁰Wonderful news for people who are persecuted because of God’s way! The kingdom of heaven belongs to you.

¹¹Wonderful news for you, when people slander you and persecute you, and say all kinds of wicked things about you falsely because of me!

¹²Celebrate and rejoice: there’s a great reward for you in heaven. That’s how they persecuted the prophets who went before you.

* Wright, N. T.. Matthew for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-15 (The New Testament for Everyone) (pp. 34-35). Kindle Edition.

Before We Climb the Mountain

In the coming weeks, we’ll be digging into Jesus’ Manifesto, the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon is arguably Jesus’ most famous body of teaching. Even people who know very little about Christianity have heard pieces of it.

“Blessed are the peacemakers.”
“Love your enemies.”
“Turn the other cheek.”
“Do not worry about tomorrow.”

These words have shaped cultures, inspired movements, challenged assumptions, and comforted countless people through the centuries.

Yet familiarity can sometimes keep us from hearing what Jesus was actually saying. Before we begin walking through the Sermon itself, I think it will be helpful to spend a little time considering the context.

Some Context…

So, let’s spend a little time considering the four narratives that house the story of Jesus – the four Gospels (remembering that gospel = euangelion = good news). Where did these four accounts come from, and who were the evangelists who authored them?

The four Gospels were written within the lifetime of people who had seen and heard Jesus.

An important thing to consider.

Matthew was not merely an observer of Jesus’ ministry; he was one of the disciples personally called by Jesus. His Gospel reflects the testimony of someone – a hated tax collector – whose life had been profoundly altered by the One he followed.

Mark likely recorded the recollections of the apostle Peter, another disciple personally called by Jesus. His life, too, was profoundly transformed by Jesus. Luke carefully investigated the events he recorded, drawing upon eyewitness testimony and earlier written accounts. John, writing later than the others, offered the reflections of yet another eyewitness who had spent years walking with Jesus.

Why does this matter?

Take a moment and ponder the richness of these four narratives. Imagine the time spent recalling experiences, stories, and feelings – looking for the right words to express them. Imagine remembering and capturing three years of your life in a way that would inspire your readers? That’s what we have here – way more than information. So it matters!

For years, whenever I worked with students, I wanted them to wrestle with a foundational question: Who is Jesus Christ, and why might I want to follow him?

I wanted them to understand why the Gospels mattered. Simply telling them they were important wasn’t going to cut it. I wanted them to crawl into the stories and experience Jesus!

So, I would bring a box of my journals into the room and invite students to read entries from various years of my life. Afterward, I would ask, “What do you know about me now that you didn’t know ten minutes ago?”

(Their responses were always quite interesting.)

Then I would show them a photo of my grandchildren and pose a hypothetical question: What if something tragic happened to me and those grandchildren never had the opportunity to know me personally? How might they learn who their grandfather was?

Eventually, someone would say it. “They could read your journals.”

Mic drop!

The Gospels are not private journals, but they serve a similar purpose. They preserve the testimony of people who knew Jesus, walked with him, listened to him, and devoted the rest of their lives to telling others about him.

The Gospel writers were not detached observers. They were participants. They had encountered Jesus personally, and their lives had never been the same. And because of their testimony, we can still hear His voice today.

Jan Brueghel the Elder’s *Sermon on the Mount* (circa 1598)

More Than a One-Time Sermon

The Sermon on the Mount is found primarily in the gospel of Matthew, chapters 5–7, with a shorter but related version appearing in Luke 6. Only Matthew and Luke record such a sermon in this form.

Many of us have been influenced by Hollywood portrayals of the Sermon on the Mount. The popular television series The Chosen depicts it as a singular, dramatic event, and it may well have been exactly that.

But there is something important to consider.

The themes and teachings found in the Sermon on the Mount appear throughout the Gospels. We encounter them in various settings, conversations, and moments in Jesus’ ministry.

That should not surprise us.

Most effective communicators return repeatedly to their central message. Good teachers often have a handful of foundational themes that they express in different ways over the years. Jesus appears to have done the same thing.

The Sermon on the Mount may be the most concentrated collection of Jesus’ teaching, but it is not an isolated collection of ideas. Rather, it provides a window into the message he proclaimed throughout his public ministry.

As we move through this series, we’ll focus on Matthew’s version of the Sermon.

Reading the Sermon Through Kingdom Eyes

One more thing is worth mentioning as we begin: Our recent conversations about the kingdom of God must travel with us into this series.

One of the challenges of reading the Sermon on the Mount is that we can mistake it for a collection of moral instructions. We hear “love your enemies,” “do not judge,” or “turn the other cheek,” and immediately begin asking, How do I do that?

But before asking how, we should ask why.

Jesus did not begin his ministry by announcing a new ethical system. He announced that the kingdom of God had drawn near.

The Sermon on the Mount is rooted in that announcement. It describes what life looks like when God’s reign is welcomed and reveals the character of people learning to live under the loving rule of the King. The Sermon on the Mount is not primarily about what people should do. It is about the kind of people God’s kingdom is forming.

If the kingdom is the message, the Sermon is one of the clearest pictures of kingdom life.

An Invitation

As we begin this journey together, my hope is not simply that we will study a famous sermon.

My hope is that we will encounter Jesus.

We’ll wrestle with his words. We’ll allow them to challenge us. We’ll let them expose assumptions we didn’t know we had. And perhaps, along the way, we’ll discover that the Sermon on the Mount is not merely something to be admired.

It is an invitation into the life of the kingdom.

So, before we climb the mountain, let’s remember whose voice we are about to hear.

Jesus’ Manifesto

The Word Makes Us Nervous

The word manifesto makes some Christians nervous. It sounds political. Ideological. Revolutionary. Maybe even dangerous.

For many, the word conjures images of angry movements, cultural upheaval, or ideological extremism. In our modern moment, “manifesto” often feels politically charged before we even define it. Some immediately associate the term with revolutionary movements on the far left or far right, with propaganda, coercion, or attempts to seize cultural power.

And to be fair, history has certainly produced destructive manifestos. Some have fueled oppression, violence, nationalism, or utopian visions untethered from humility and love. So, the hesitation is understandable.

When we view a manifesto in a category that belongs exclusively to political radicals and cultural revolutionaries, rather than recognizing it more broadly as a public declaration of vision, convictions, and way of life, we have flattened the value of the term. It then becomes difficult to recognize that Jesus Himself spoke in ways that were deeply public, deeply disruptive, and deeply challenging to the social and religious assumptions of His day – manifesto-like.

I recently read about a pastor preaching a message focused on The Sermon on the Mount. Afterward, one of the church leaders confronted him about his “woke ideologies.” The pastor responded that he had simply been repeating the words of Jesus. The man replied, “Not my Jesus.”

Whether the story is apocryphal or not, it captures something revealing about our moment. We have become so discipled by modern political categories that the teachings of Jesus can sound foreign – even threatening – when heard without the filters we normally place on them.

A Domesticated Jesus?

Perhaps part of our discomfort is that we have grown accustomed to thinking of Jesus primarily in private and personal terms – as though His teachings were mainly about individual spirituality or moral inspiration rather than the announcement of an entirely different kind of kingdom and humanity. In a sense, we have domesticated Jesus.

When Jesus ascended a hillside in Galilee, sat down with His disciples, and began speaking about blessing, enemies, lust, anger, money, anxiety, prayer, power, integrity, retaliation, and the kingdom of God, He was not offering detached religious reflections for private inspiration. He was announcing an entirely different way of being human under the reign of God.

In many ways, the Sermon on the Mount reads like a manifesto.

What Manifestos Actually Do

A manifesto is a public declaration of vision, values, convictions, and way of life. It names what is wrong with the present order and calls people into an alternative reality. Manifestos challenge assumptions. They form identity. They summon allegiance. They announce that another way is possible.

The Declaration of Independence functioned as a manifesto. It publicly declared that the existing relationship with the British crown was no longer acceptable, articulated foundational convictions about human dignity and governance, and called for an entirely new national identity to emerge.

Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses served as a manifesto for reform within the Church. What began as an academic dispute became a public challenge to corruption, spiritual abuse, and distorted theology. Luther was not merely complaining; he was calling people back to a different understanding of the gospel and authority.

Likewise, The Rule of Saint Benedict functioned as a manifesto for an alternative kind of community. Benedict laid out rhythms, values, practices, and shared commitments that shaped how people would live together under the lordship of Christ. It was not simply theoretical theology. It was an embodied vision.

The Manifesto of the Kingdom

Manifestos do not merely describe ideas. They seek to form people. And that is precisely what Jesus seemed to be doing in the Sermon on the Mount.

We can easily reduce the Sermon on the Mount to one of three things:

impossible moral standards meant to make us feel our need for grace,
inspirational sayings suitable for coffee mugs and wall art,
or ethical suggestions for especially serious Christians.

But Jesus presented the Sermon as none of those things. This was the manifesto of the kingdom of God. Jesus announced a new reality breaking into the world: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

God was indeed king.

And the Sermon on the Mount described what life looks like when people actually live under His reign. This manifesto was radically counter-cultural then, and it remains radically counter-cultural now…

Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Love your enemies.
Pray for those who persecute you.
Reject performative religion.
Tell the truth without manipulation.
Refuse vengeance.
Seek first the kingdom.
Do not store up treasures on earth.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

None of these fits neatly into modern ideological categories.

Jesus confronted both religious nationalism and moral compromise. He challenged hypocrisy and self-righteousness. He critiqued greed, status-seeking, lust for power, anxiety-driven accumulation, and hatred toward enemies. He called people into a life marked by humility, mercy, purity, courage, integrity, generosity, reconciliation, and radical trust in the Father.

That is not Republican.
That is not Democrat.
That is kingdom.

And perhaps that is why the Sermon still unsettles us.

More Than Private Spirituality

We have become remarkably skilled at admiring Jesus while explaining away the direct implications of His teachings. We sentimentalize the Sermon on the Mount because actually obeying it would require a profound reordering of our lives, priorities, politics, relationships, economics, ambitions, and identities.

Jesus was not merely offering spiritual guidance for getting into heaven someday. He was forming a people who would embody the life of heaven here and now – “On earth as in heaven.”

A manifesto.

Not enforced through coercion or violence.
Not advanced through domination.
But through surrendered hearts shaped by the reign of God.

In the coming posts, we will spend some time walking through the Sermon on the Mount as Jesus’ kingdom manifesto – not as abstract ideals, but as the invitation into an entirely different way of living in the world.

Kingdom Politics in a Partisan Age

When we hear the word political, our minds often drift toward partisan bickering, campaign ads, and endless fights between the left and the right. Politics, fundamentally, is about how communities govern themselves and pursue human flourishing together – how power is exercised, how justice is pursued, and how public life is ordered. It concerns the values and structures that shape public life.

Partisanship is narrower. It is allegiance to a party, ideology, tribe, or faction, often reducing reality into “us versus them.” In short, being political is about the common good; being partisan is about taking sides.

That distinction matters when we talk about Jesus.

Whether we recognize it or not, Jesus was profoundly political. He proclaimed a kingdom, confronted systems of power, redefined authority, and announced a new social reality under the reign of God. Yet he consistently resisted being co-opted by the partisan movements of his day.

He did not align himself with the Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, or Zealots. He transcended them all.

And that frustrated people.

Some wanted Jesus to overthrow Rome. Others wanted him to reinforce the religious establishment. Still others hoped he would baptize their version of nationalism or morality. Jesus refused every attempt to squeeze him into a human political category.

That refusal still frustrates people today.

The Politics of the Kingdom

Jesus’ first public proclamation was deeply political: “The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news.” (Mark 1:15)

In the Roman world, Caesar claimed titles like “Lord” and “Savior.” The empire proclaimed its own “gospel” — good news about the reign of Caesar and the peace of Rome.

So when Jesus announced the kingdom of God, he was declaring an alternative reign, an alternative allegiance, and an alternative vision for human flourishing. The earliest Christians understood this – when they confessed, “Jesus is Lord,” they were simultaneously declaring, “Caesar is not.”

But Jesus’ politics did not mirror Caesar’s politics.

His kingdom would not advance through domination or violence. It would spread through love, truth, healing, forgiveness, and love of the enemy. Jesus subverted the normal assumptions of political power.

As Stanley Hauerwas often argues, Christians are called to resist the political categories, assumptions, and demands of their age. The church proclaims that we belong first to another kingdom.

Challenging Power Without Grasping for It

Jesus consistently confronted distorted uses of power.

He overturned tables in the temple because worship had become entangled with exploitation (Matthew 21:12–13). He rebuked leaders who burdened others while refusing to help carry the load (Matthew 23:4). And he taught that leadership in God’s kingdom is about serving, not “lording it over” others (Mark 10:42–45, Luke 22:25–26), contrasted with the politics of earthly kingdoms.

Jesus rejected domination as the pathway to transformation.

That is why he puzzled both the religious establishment and the political revolutionaries of his day. The Zealots wanted revolt. Rome wanted order through force. Jesus chose servanthood.

He taught that greatness looks like humility, leadership looks like sacrifice, and authority looks like washing feet.

Refusing Partisan Co-Option

One of the clearest examples of Jesus resisting partisan co-option came when he was asked whether Jews should pay taxes to Caesar (Matthew 22:15–22).

The question was a trap.

If Jesus endorsed the tax, many Jews would see him as siding with Rome. If he rejected it, Rome could brand him a revolutionary.

Jesus refused the false binary.

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s,” he said, “and to God what is God’s.”

With one statement, Jesus acknowledged the limited role of earthly government while also relativizing its authority. Caesar may have his coins, but Caesar does not own human souls.

If coins bear Caesar’s image, human beings bear God’s image. Our ultimate allegiance belongs to God.

This is why Christians must be careful whenever political parties attempt to claim unquestioned loyalty. The moment the church becomes fully identified with a partisan movement, it risks domesticating the kingdom of God into something far smaller than Jesus intended.

Jesus consistently resisted those kinds of reductions.

After feeding the five thousand, the crowds attempted to “make him king by force.” Jesus withdrew from them (John 6:15). They wanted a Messiah who fit their political expectations.

Jesus would not comply.

The Politics of Radical Human Dignity

Jesus’ politics were also visible in the people he welcomed.

Philip Yancey noted that Jesus refused to let institutions interfere with love for actual human beings…

Jesus spoke with a Samaritan woman whom society marginalized ethnically, morally, and religiously. He called Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot into the same circle of disciples. He ate with Pharisees and sinners. He touched lepers, welcomed children, and praised outsiders.¹

Again and again, Jesus placed people above categories. And every one of these actions carried political implications because they redrew the boundaries of belonging.

The kingdom of God was not built around tribal purity or partisan identity. It was built around reconciliation.

Why This Matters Now

Following Jesus cannot be apolitical.

To live under the lordship of Christ means caring about justice, truth, peace, mercy, and the ordering of life together. Christians cannot retreat into a privatized faith that ignores public life.

At the same time, Jesus warns us against becoming captive to partisanship. Paul rebuked believers for dividing themselves into factions:

“One of you says, ‘I follow Paul’; another, ‘I follow Apollos’… Is Christ divided?” (1 Corinthians 1:12–13)

That warning still matters. Whenever Christians equate the kingdom of God with a political party, ideology, nation, or movement, we shrink the gospel into something tribal. We tame the radical vision of Jesus. We begin treating political opponents as enemies to defeat instead of neighbors to love.

N.T. Wright writes that God’s kingdom is the place “where love and justice and truth and mercy and holiness reign unhindered.”² Those realities never fit neatly into partisan categories. The kingdom critiques every party. Every ideology. Every ruler.

Including the ones we prefer.

Living as Citizens of Another Kingdom

So the question is not whether Jesus was political. He clearly was.

The better question is this: How can we be political like Jesus without becoming partisan like the world? That may mean:

Speaking truth to power, no matter who holds office.
Prioritizing the vulnerable even when it costs us socially or politically.
Refusing to demonize those on “the other side.”
Caring more about faithfulness than winning.
Remembering that our ultimate hope is not found in elections, parties, politicians, or nations, but in the risen Christ.

In a polarized age, the church has an opportunity to model a different kind of public witness – a people shaped not by outrage, fear, or tribalism, but by the ethics of the kingdom of God. A people who proclaim that Jesus is Lord.

And because Jesus is Lord, no political party ever will be.

¹ Yancey, P. (1995). The Jesus I never knew (International trade paper edition). Zondervan Publishing House.

² Wright, N. T. (2004). Matthew for everyone : Part two. Westminster John Knox Press.

Pulling It All Together: Reading Jesus Through the Right Lens

Over the past several posts in this “Not What You Think It Means” series, we have revisited words that sit at the center of Jesus’ message:

Kingdom.
Repent.
Believe.
Gospel.

At first glance, this may have felt like a long detour into vocabulary. But it was never really about vocabulary. It was about lenses. Because how we understand those words shapes how we read everything Jesus said and did.

If the gospel is primarily about “how I get to go to heaven,” then we will inevitably read the Gospels through that framework. We might admire Jesus, learn from Him, or worship Him, but we may miss much of what He was actually announcing.

Jesus did not begin His ministry by saying, “Here is how to get to heaven.” As we’ve seen, Mark summarized Jesus’ message this way:

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)

That announcement becomes the interpretive key for everything that follows. Without that lens, we can easily misread the Gospels. And certainly not capture the full weight of what the writers wanted their readers to hear.

We May Reduce Jesus to a Sin-Forgiveness Mechanism

If the primary point of Christianity becomes personal afterlife assurance (“after-life” insurance?), Jesus can slowly become reduced to the One who helps us “go to heaven.”

Of course, forgiveness matters deeply. Eternity matters deeply. But the Gospels reveal Jesus announcing something much larger: the reign of God breaking into the present world. Once we begin to see that, His words and actions make more sense and take on new meaning.

His miracles were not random supernatural proofs designed merely to convince people that He was divine. They were signs of the kingdom.

Jesus was not merely preparing people for life after death. He was revealing what life under the reign of God looks like right now.

We May Misread the Parables

The parables especially begin to change when viewed through a kingdom lens. Modern readers often approach parables looking primarily for moral lessons or hidden theological codes. But Jesus repeatedly said:

“The kingdom of God is like…”

That matters. The parables were helping people imagine what happens when God becomes King…

The kingdom was like a mustard seed — small, overlooked, yet growing into something far larger than expected.
The kingdom was like yeast in dough — quiet, hidden, yet slowly transforming everything.
The kingdom was like a treasure hidden in a field — valuable enough to reorder one’s entire life around it.

Without a kingdom lens, we can flatten these stories into generic encouragements about faith or morality. But Jesus was describing an entirely new reality breaking into the world.

Even parables of judgment begin to read differently. They are not merely threats about the afterlife. They are warnings about resisting the reign of God that was arriving in their midst.

We May Miss Why Jesus Clashed with Religious Leaders

Without understanding the gospel of the kingdom, Jesus’ confrontations with religious leaders can seem unexpectedly harsh. Why did He provoke them so often? Why did Sabbath debates become so intense? Why were they scandalized by what he said and did?

Because Jesus wasn’t merely tweaking religious behavior. He was challenging entire ways of seeing God, power, holiness, and identity. The kingdom of God was disrupting existing systems. He was inaugurating a radical reorientation of thought and life in light of the reality that God’s reign had come near.

“You have heard it said… but I say to you.”

Jesus continually challenged assumptions about enemies, status, greatness, purity, wealth, retaliation, righteousness, etc.

It was all very scandalous!

The Sermon on the Mount Changes Completely

This may be most obvious with the Sermon on the Mount. Without a kingdom framework, the Sermon can feel impossible, disconnected from reality, or reduced to inspirational ideals.

Love your enemies.
Turn the other cheek.
Bless those who curse you.
Do not worry.
Seek first the kingdom.

Read through an individualistic “how do I get saved?” framework, these teachings can feel strangely disconnected from the “main point” of Christianity. But Jesus was describing what life looks like under the reign of God, which is the main point.

The Sermon on the Mount is not random ethics. It’s foundational. It describes life under God’s rule. It describes the kind of people God is inviting and forming to participate as workers in his kingdom.

The Beatitudes suddenly become more than poetic sayings. They become announcements of who the kingdom is available to: the overlooked, the humble, the merciful, the peacemakers.

“Seek first the kingdom of God” stops being a decorative Christian phrase and becomes the framework through which we order our lives.

Why This Matters Going Forward

This is why we have spent time visiting these foundational words. We are not merely nuancing definitions. We are learning to read Jesus through the framework He Himself announced.

The kingdom of God has come near.
Repent.
Believe the good news.

From here forward, we are going to revisit Jesus’ teachings, actions, parables, and confrontations through that lens.

Because when the message of Jesus becomes centered primarily on “going to heaven when we die,” Jesus Himself can gradually become reduced to the means of getting there rather than the One announcing and embodying the reign of God breaking into the present world.

And once that happens, discipleship can quietly become optional.

Following Jesus may be treated as an advanced step only for especially committed Christians rather than the normal response to the King and His kingdom. The focus can shift toward securing forgiveness or eternal destiny while leaving the larger invitation of Jesus — “Follow Me” — sitting at the edges of the Christian life.

Ironically, this can also drift toward moralism.

When the kingdom of God is no longer the central framework, the teachings of Jesus become reduced to ethical expectations detached from the life and power of God’s reign. Remember, He called people to become disciples —

Apprentices who would learn to live under the reign of God here and now.

Gospel: Not What You Think It Means (Part 1)

We’ve been on a journey since the fall of 2024 – a journey to discover/rediscover the kingdom of God that stood at the very center of Jesus’ message. (See Almost Getting It… and On Earth as in Heaven….)

For me, that journey began nearly 35 years ago, when I first realized that the kingdom of God wasn’t peripheral to Jesus’ teaching – it was the thing. And yet, that realization came with a tension: though Jesus spoke primarily about the kingdom, I struggled to remember hearing much teaching that reflected His focus.

We’ve been lingering – intentionally – on Jesus’ opening proclamation in Mark’s account, slowing down to consider the meaning of the words He chose.

“Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time has come, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the gospel.’” (Mark 1:14–15)

We’ve spent time with the kingdom of God, repent and believe. Now it’s time to turn to another word in that sentence – one we use often, perhaps too casually:

Gospel.

And here’s my working hypothesis: “Gospel” may be one of those terms we use regularly without fully understanding what it means – especially as Jesus used it, and as first-century Israelites would have heard it.

If that’s true, then it matters more than we might think. Because if we misunderstand “gospel,” we may also misunderstand:

what Jesus was announcing,
what He was inviting people into,
and how the kingdom of God actually breaks into the present.

A Simple Question

Several years ago, I posted a simple prompt on Facebook:

“In a sentence or two, what is the gospel?“

The responses were thoughtful, sincere, and – perhaps most interestingly – quite diverse.

Here’s a sampling:

“God showing eternal, grace-filled, unconditional love in human form through Jesus on earth.”
“Jesus is God with us… to show us God’s love, save us from sin, set up God’s kingdom…”
“It’s the New Testament telling of Jesus’ life… so that our sins are forgiven.”
“The truth.”
“The BEST news… that God loves us and has made it possible for us to live a forever life with Him, starting now.”
“Jesus died to pay for our sins so that we can be forgiven and go to Heaven…”
“A love story.”
“My only hope… Jesus living a perfect life, dying in my place…”
“Four gospels telling their version of the same story.”
“Hope for all!”
“Christ’s death and His resurrection.”
“The invitation to eternal life.”

Take a moment and sit with these.

What resonates with you?
What feels incomplete?
What makes you pause?

What We Tend to Mean by “Gospel”

As I’ve reflected on these responses, a few general themes begin to emerge.

1. The Gospel as a Message About Personal Salvation
Many responses focused on sin, forgiveness, and eternal life – especially life after death. This framing emphasizes what Jesus has done for me so that I can be saved and go to heaven.

2. The Gospel as an Expression of God’s Love
Others highlighted God’s love story – grace, compassion, and relational restoration. This centers on who God is and how He has acted toward humanity.

3. The Gospel as the Story of Jesus’ Life and Work
Some described the gospel as the narrative itself – the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

4. The Gospel as Good News (in a General Sense)
A few answers stayed closer to the literal meaning – “good news,” “hope,” “truth” – but without always defining what the news is.

All True… But Is That All?

Here’s what’s striking: There is truth in every one of these responses. And yet, if we placed ourselves in Galilee in the first century, standing in the crowd as Jesus spoke these words…

“The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe in the gospel.”

…would the people listening have understood “gospel” primarily in these ways?

Would they have heard:

“a plan of personal salvation,”
or “a summary of theological truths,”
or “a set of writings not yet written”?

Or would something else have come to mind? Something more immediate… more public… more world-shifting?

Before We Define It…

Before we rush to define “gospel,” it may be worth lingering in the tension. Because sometimes the problem isn’t that what we believe is wrong – It’s that it might be too small.

So before moving forward, consider:

Which of the responses do you instinctively agree with?
Which ones feel incomplete or lacking?
Which ones stretch your current understanding?
And perhaps most importantly…

What might be missing altogether?

We’ll begin to explore how “gospel” was used in everyday first-century life – and what Jesus’ audience likely heard. Next time.

For now, just sit with the question.

Because what we think the gospel is…
will shape how we hear everything Jesus said.

Repent: Not What You Think It Means

In the previous post in this series, Not What You Think It Means: The Words That Framed Jesus’ Message, we began looking at several words that sit at the very center of Jesus’ proclamation:

“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the gospel!” (Mark 1:15)

For many modern readers, words like kingdom, repent, and gospel have become overly familiar. We hear them so often that we assume we know exactly what they mean.

But familiarity can sometimes mask misunderstanding.

In particular, the word repent often carries baggage that may not reflect what Jesus’ original listeners heard. For many people today, the word repent sounds like a stern religious command: feel guilty, confess your sins, and promise to do better.

While repentance certainly involves moral change, that understanding may miss the larger picture of what Jesus was announcing. To see this more clearly, we need to step back and ask a simple question:

What did the word “repent” mean in the world of Jesus?

Seeing Differently

The New Testament word translated repent is the Greek verb metanoeō, with the related noun metanoia. The word comes from two Greek roots:

meta – after, beyond, or change
nous – mind, perception, understanding

At its most basic level, metanoia meant a change of mind. But in Greek thought, the “mind” was not merely intellectual. It referred to the center of perception – how a person understood reality, made judgments, and oriented their life.

Repentance, therefore, described a shift in how someone saw things: a reconsideration of one’s assumptions and a recognition that one’s previous understanding may have been mistaken.

Classical Greek writers used the word this way long before the New Testament. A general might rethink a military strategy, a statesman might reverse a policy after realizing it was misguided, or a person might reconsider a decision after gaining new insight. In those settings, repentance was not primarily religious. It simply meant reconsidering and changing course.

Another Greek word, metamelomai, described emotional regret or remorse. But metanoia focused more on a change in perspective that led to a change in direction.

That distinction matters. Repentance was not primarily about feeling bad. It was about seeing differently.

The Prophets’ Call: Return to the Lord

When Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek (in what we call the Septuagint), they sometimes used metanoeō to translate the Hebrew word shuv, which meant to turn or to return.

In the Old Testament, repentance meant turning back to God – abandoning idols, injustice, and self-reliance and returning to covenant faithfulness. The prophets called Israel to repent not merely by feeling remorse but by reorienting their lives toward Yahweh (cf. Joel 2:12–13; Hosea 14:1–2; Isaiah 55:6–7; Jeremiah 3:12–14; Ezekiel 18:30–32).

“Return to me,” God said through the prophets.

This Hebrew background added an important dimension to the Greek word. Repentance became not only a change of thinking but a relational turning toward God.

What Repentance Meant in Jesus’ World

Now place yourself among the people who first heard Jesus’ words.

John the Baptist had already appeared in the wilderness calling Israel to repentance and warning that God was about to act decisively in history. Then Jesus arrived in Galilee announcing:

“The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the gospel.”

Notice the order.

Jesus did not simply say, “Repent.” He said repent because something had happened. “The time has come.” In other words, the long-awaited moment in God’s story with Israel had arrived.

“The kingdom of God has come near.” God’s reign – the reality Israel had prayed for, longed for, and sung about in the Psalms – was now breaking into history in a new way.

In light of that announcement, Jesus called people to repent. Seen in this context, repentance sounded less like a rebuke and more like an invitation.

It meant something like this: Rethink everything.

The way you understood God’s work in the world.
The way you imagined the kingdom would come.
The way you expected power, victory, and salvation to look.

God was acting – but not in the ways many expected. The kingdom was arriving not through political revolt or military power but through the surprising ministry of Jesus himself. Tax collectors, fishermen, and ordinary villagers began to follow him. The sick were healed. Sinners were welcomed. Outsiders were brought near.

If people wanted to recognize what God was doing, they had to see differently.

They had to repent.

Rethinking Life Under God’s Reign

When Jesus called people to repent, he was not simply telling them to feel sorry for their sins. He was inviting them to adopt a new vision of reality.

Repentance meant allowing one’s assumptions about God, power, righteousness, and identity to be reshaped by the arrival of the kingdom. It meant recognizing that the story many people thought they were living in was not the whole story.

God was doing something new – yet something deeply rooted in the promises of Israel’s Scriptures. To repent was to step into that story. And once someone began to see the world through the lens of God’s kingdom, life inevitably began to change.

Because when we see differently, we live differently.

Part of the challenge for modern readers is that we often hear repentance through the lens of what sociologists call Moralistic Therapeutic Deism¹ – the idea that God mainly wants people to be nice, happy, and feel good about themselves. In that framework, repentance shrinks into little more than moral self-improvement. But Jesus’ call to repent was far more disruptive than that – it was an invitation to rethink everything in light of the arriving kingdom.

Repentance as Good News

For many of us, the word repent still carries echoes of accusation or pressure.

But in the mouth of Jesus, repentance was part of the gospel itself. It was an invitation to wake up – to recognize that God’s kingdom had drawn near and that a new way of seeing and living had become possible.

Repentance was not merely about looking backward at past mistakes. It was about turning toward the reality of what God was doing right now.

In other words:

The kingdom was near. So rethink everything.

¹Smith, C., & Denton, M. L. (2005). Soul searching: The religious and spiritual lives of american teenagers. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.