Rabbi Schneider — King Jesus and The Kingdom of God
Shalom Yedidim, and God bless you, beloved ones. My name's Rabbi Kirt Schneider. Welcome today to this edition of Discovering the Jewish Jesus.
We are in a series now entitled King Yeshua and the Kingdom of God, King Jesus and the Kingdom of God. We don't understand sometimes, beloved, that the message that Jesus brought is bigger than just a message of our own personal salvation.
Most of us relate to Jesus in a way that is personal to the extent that we're not aware of the larger picture, that, that which Jesus came to bring is bigger than just about your or my personal relationship with him.
I mean, our personal relationship with him, that can't be minimized, but we're missing something bigger; that when Jesus arrived on the scene as I shared last week, John the Baptist prepared the world for his coming by telling us in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 3, this;
John the Baptist proclaimed, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And so John the Baptist's perception of what Jesus came to bring was a kingdom, the kingdom of heaven. Often times we see in the gospels that these two terms, the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God are used exchangeably.
In other words, one writer will use the term kingdom of heaven. Another writer will use the word kingdom of God to explain the same exact incident. John the Baptist understood that the mission of Jesus was more than just any one person's individual salvation, but rather it was about bringing in the rule of God on earth. The kingdom of heaven, John said, is at hand.
Jesus continued this theme when he was introduced to the world through his own lips.