Show Notes
In this episode of Peaceable and Kind, Derek Vreeland takes a fresh look at the central theme of Jesus’ ministry, the kingdom of God. While the phrase is familiar to many Christians, it is often misunderstood, reduced, or distorted.
Jesus proclaimed, taught, and demonstrated the kingdom by announcing good news, explaining its implications, and embodying its power through healing. But the kingdom is not what many assume. It is not merely a future reality in heaven, nor is it simply good works, church activity, or private spirituality. It is not aligned with political ideologies or national agendas.
Instead, the Kingdom of God is the rule of God in Christ on the earth through the church. Derek challenges both common misunderstandings: the idea that the kingdom is only future (held by many evangelicals) and the idea that it is something we must build through human effort (held by many progressives). The truth, he argues, is found in the tension—what theologians call the “already and not yet.”
This episode also explores the political nature of the kingdom, not partisan, but deeply political in the sense that it confronts and reshapes how power is understood and exercised. Rooted in the Sermon on the Mount, the kingdom calls followers of Jesus into a new way of living, one that resists both cultural polarization and ideological captivity.
The invitation of Jesus is not simply to believe in the kingdom but to enter it, live under its authority, and bear witness to it in a divided world.
Key Takeaways
The kingdom of God is the central message of Jesus’ ministry.
The kingdom includes proclamation, teaching, and demonstration.
The kingdom is not heaven, good works, or private spirituality.
It is the rule and reign of God through King Jesus on the earth.
The kingdom is both present (“already”) and future (“not yet”).
The kingdom is political—but not partisan.
Followers of Jesus are called to live under God’s rule, not build their own version of the kingdom.
Allegiance to political ideologies can distort our understanding of the kingdom.
Scriptures Mentioned
Matthew 9:35
Matthew 3:2
Isaiah 2:2–4
Hebrews 12:22–24
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Transcript
Welcome back.
To another episode of Peaceable and Kind, the podcast where we pursue the way of Jesus, marked by peace and shaped by kindness.
My name is Derek Vreeland, and I am your host.
And if you
Are new to Peaceable and Kind, welcome.
I’ve been teaching a online course on Tuesday nights
through my resurrection bible study.
And a number of people were talking about listening to these podcast episodes.
Shout out Marielle and Charles.
And uh someone else in the course said, what is peaceable and kind?
So if you are new to the podcast, let me encourage you to subscribe and leave a rating.
and review that helps us a lot.
On this episode, I want to talk about the kingdom of God
I was jogging the other day.
I have a habit of three days a week getting out to exercise.
Currently I’m jogging on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Friday is my day off.
And that used to be the time where I would take a long run.
Right now I’m shortening my runs, and so Fridays, I’m now biking.
uh going for a long bike ride.
And this is how I like to get my Sabbath day, my day of rest, Friday, started off with a long bike ride.
But I was recently on a jog and and I was all up in my head, and I began to think about the political nature of the kingdom of God and how so many Christians
Miss that fact that the kingdom of God really is political.
And I know that so many people are just worn out with politics
and political news and political wrangling.
I get that.
But I think it’s important to recognize
That the kingdom of God is political.
And so we’re calling this episode the kingdom of God is not what you think.
So let’s begin.
First, I’m spending time talking about the kingdom of God because it is the primary
theme of Jesus in his earthly ministry.
So for example, listen to Matthew 935.
In the Gospel of Matthew, it says, And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease.
and every affliction.
So I’ve always paid attention that in here in Matthew’s Gospel and in other places, it talks about Jesus
preaching or proclaiming the kingdom of God, teaching, and also healing.
And these three things go together
So preaching is a proclamation.
It’s announcing the good news.
Teaching, which Jesus also did, is sort of a drawing out of the implications
of the kingdom of God?
What does it look like for us to live as citizens in God’s kingdom and also healing?
The healing ministry of Jesus was a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.
It was prophesied that when Messiah comes, part of what he would do would be to heal the sick.
That the lame would walk, the deaf would hear, the blind would see.
So the healing ministry of Jesus is an important messianic
Prophecy fulfilled, and it is tied to his preaching and teaching about the kingdom of God.
Because in healing the sick and casting out demons, Jesus was demonstrating
The kingdom’s power.
And so if we want to understand what the kingdom of God is, we we read the gospels, we pay attention to what Jesus is teaching
But Jesus often taught and proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom through parables, and often his disciples did not understand what he was talking about.
If you ever read something from Jesus or from the apostles in the New Testament, or you hear a sermon and you’re like, I don’t know what they’re talking about.
Just know you are in good company because Jesus handpicked disciples who walked with him every day through his three-year ministry, who had meals with him
They spent more time with Jesus, up close and personal, than any of us, and they often did not understand what Jesus was talking about
And sometimes I think because Jesus didn’t ever clearly define what the kingdom of God is.
I think people have misunderstandings.
And so it is true, the kingdom of God is probably not what you think it is.
So before we talk about what the kingdom is.
Here’s some popular ideas that are out there that for me help us understand what the kingdom of God is not.
First, the kingdom of God is not a kingdom in heaven.
Some people associate the kingdom of God with heaven
Heaven is God’s domain.
Heaven is God’s space.
God designed heaven and earth to be a one, united, symbiotic sense of space and time.
But because of sin, heaven and earth have been bifurcated, they have been divided and split.
There’s a fracture.
So heaven is not a faraway place.
Heaven’s another dimension.
It’s God’s space.
And in Matthew’s Gospel, you often hear Jesus talking about the kingdom of heaven
And so some people make the false assumption, oh, the kingdom of God is synonymous with heaven.
But let’s be clear, in Matthew’s gospel, he is using the word heaven in the phrase kingdom of heaven as a metaphor, as a placeholder for God Himself.
In some places of first century Jewish life, the name of God would have been too sacred to speak.
not only God’s personal name Yahweh, but even to say the name God, Phaos in Greek or Elohim in Hebrew.
It’s too sacred to even say God, so they would say heaven instead of saying God.
They would use the word heaven as a placeholder referring to God.
So in Matthew’s gospel, the kingdom of heaven is not a kingdom that dwells in heaven, it is the kingdom of God
Another thing that the kingdom is not is the kingdom of God is not simply doing good works in Jesus’ name
Sometimes Christians will use the phrase kingdom work to talk about people that engage in social justice
So for example, when I lived in Southwest Georgia, I pastored a church in Americas where Habitat for Humanity and also the Fuller Center for Housing, they have their headquarters there.
Uh both organizations founded by Millard Fuller exist to eliminate poverty housing.
And so some people will say, well, Habitat or the Fuller Center, not necessarily a Christian, like missionary organization, but they’re doing kingdom work because they’re helping the poor.
And I think that that is a misunderstanding of what the kingdom is.
Uh doing good works, that’s what we do as kingdom citizens, but simply doing that work is not quote-unquote kingdom work.
The kingdom of God is not what we do.
Other people will use the phrase kingdom of God to refer to all the churches together.
So I believe in the unity of the church.
I pray for the unity of the church.
I believe the unity of the church.
is not possible organizationally, institutionally, but I do believe relationally
we can experience a kind of oneness, particularly for us Protestants with our Catholic brothers and sisters after Vatican II.
In the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church acknowledged that there are Christians who do not walk in fellowship with
the Roman Catholic Church under the headship of the Pope.
In some of the documentations from Vatican II, they call us separated
Brethren.
And that refers both to Protestants here in the West as well as the Orthodox in the East.
And they say that we are united by the same Spirit
though we don’t fully confess Catholic faith with a capital C.
So I do believe in the unity of the church
But some people will say, hey, we had some people from our church join a different church and they’re growing there.
And that’s okay because it’s all for the kingdom.
Well, uh not exactly.
The the kingdom of God is not just all of the churches working together, even though the unity of the church is a really good thing.
The kingdom of God is also not Christian nationalism, and let me put an exclamation point on that.
Christian nationalism has been rising in the MAGA movement, the the hard political right in the United States.
And I have written a number of articles, I’ve done podcast episodes absolutely opposed to Christian nationalism.
Christian nationalism is a false religion
And it uses Christian imagery, uh, but in more of a idolatrous way
It prostitutes Christian language, scripture, and imagery for the sake of the nation
And so you will hear Christian nationalists say, as we get Christians in different places in the government
As we get Christians to lead organizations around the world, we are bringing the kingdom of God.
And this, my friends, is not true.
I just feel in my bones Jesus rebuking Christian nationalists to say grasping for positions of power and authority is not
The way the kingdom comes.
If you want to know how the kingdom comes, read Jesus in the Gospels.
And the kingdom is much more like planting seed and patiently
waiting for it to grow.
I find myself quite irritated with Christian nationalists, particularly those that function in positions of authority.
in the government or the military in particular, as if God would hear the prayers of warmongers.
I completely agree with Pope Leo that God hears no such prayers.
So I won’t go on any more of a rant about Christian nationalism, but that their version of the kingdom of God is not the kingdom.
Jesus proclaimed, taught, and healed to demonstrate the power of.
The kingdom of God is also not
a strategy for becoming better people or some kind of private spirituality.
Sometimes people focus on the kingdom of God within us.
And they use kingdom of God language to talk about spirituality or spiritual formation, which is very, very important, but that’s not the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is also not what you hear in those that preach a prosperity gospel.
I remember years ago hearing a TV preacher.
Talk about Christians as kids of the King.
And because we are kids of the King, we should live lavishly
We should live like royalty with the abundance of riches.
And my friends, that is not the kingdom of God.
So
What is the kingdom?
You’ve been listening this long to this podcast episode, so what is it?
Well
Again, Jesus never gives us a clear definition of the kingdom.
He rather reveals it through his parables.
But for me, this is how I would define the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is the rule of God, that is the authority, the rule and reign of God.
In Christ, that’s in King Jesus, on the earth, through the church.
I think this is the most succinct definition
of the kingdom of God that I have put together from studying what Jesus and other New Testament writers
Are saying in the scriptures about the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is the rule of God in Christ on the earth through the church.
And Jesus began his earthly ministry with this announcement.
This is in Matthew 3:2.
Repent, Jesus said.
For the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
And that phrase at hand means it has drawn near, it is arriving, it’s breaking in.
Which leads to the big question about the kingdom of God that people ask and that Christians debate
And the big question surrounding the kingdom of God is, has the kingdom already come to earth, or are we still waiting for it to come?
Now, Christians of different theological traditions have different responses to this question.
What I have heard over the years is that many evangelical Christians tend to believe that we are still waiting for the kingdom to come.
Now, some of these evangelical Christians, and when I say evangelical, I mean evangelical in the classic sense of the term, not the political sense.
Some of them have grown impatient, waiting for the kingdom to come, and they have bought into the lie of Christian nationalism.
But for those who have not gone full-blown MAGA, there are evangelical Christians, non-denominational Christians.
that are holding out hope that one day the kingdom will come, that one day Jesus will return and finally set up his throne.
So, for example, let’s think through the implications of this view.
I subscribe to Christian nonviolence.
I do not believe that war belongs in the kingdom of God
The only war Jesus engages in is the war against sin, death, and the devil.
I believe that Jesus fulfills
Old Testament prophecies like the ones we read in Isaiah 2, verses 2 through 4, where the prophet writes,
It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills, and all the nations shall flow to it.
And many peoples shall come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob.
that he may teach us his ways, and that we may walk in his paths.
For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes from many people, and they shall beat their swords into plough shares, and their spears into pruning hooks
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.
I believe that those verses from Isaiah have been fulfilled by Jesus when he came to earth
I think that the book of Hebrews helps us to see that.
In Hebrews chapter 12, the writer of Hebrews says that we have not come to Mount Sinai.
To that terrifying mountain where Moses received the law.
Instead, it says, We have come to Mount Zion.
Let me read to you just a bit, Hebrews 12, starting in verse 22.
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God.
the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels and festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven
and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant
So Hebrews 12, I think, really shows us that we have now come to Mount Zion, to the mountain of God.
So for those of us who believe in Jesus, we have come to that mountain and we believe.
And what Isaiah said is when nations come to that mountain, Mount Zion, which is Jesus.
There they will learn to walk in God’s ways, to walk in God’s paths, and they will learn war no more.
Hey friends, I want to pause this episode for just a moment to let you know that Resurrection, 8 Lessons on How God Restores Us, the third and final book in the God in the Neighborhood Bible study.
Study series is out now.
Go to the show notes for ordering information.
So I believe it’s possible right now for nations to back away from war.
Now, when I tell people that, often my more like evangelical brothers and sisters will say, yeah.
I mean, one day when Jesus returns, there will be the possibility of learning war no more.
But until then, we’re gonna have to put up with war and rumors of war.
These Christians believe that the kingdom is not here, that the kingdom hasn’t come, that it’s all in the future, and this I believe is a mistaken view.
On the other side of the Christian spectrum, when I hear mainline progressive Christians,
Many, not all of them, but many of them I hear, they talk about the kingdom being here and that we have to build the kingdom.
That Jesus has brought the kingdom and now that the kingdom is here, we need to go about the business of building the kingdom through works of justice.
And I do believe in advocating for justice, participating in God’s work of setting things right
But I think that the view that I hear often from the more progressive left side of the church is also a mistaken view
Because it makes it sound like there is no kingdom to come, that it’s all here.
I think both views are mistaken
So, back to the big question, has the kingdom come or is it coming?
The answer is yes.
Both.
The kingdom of God is already here and it is coming
God’s rule and reign in Christ on the earth through the church is here presently, and it is also a coming kingdom
George Eldon Ladd made popular this idea in the 70s, the 80s.
I was reading him in seminary in the 1990s.
He’s made popular this paradigm, the already and the not yet of the kingdom.
We believe that the kingdom is here.
But the kingdom is still to come.
We believe when Jesus said, repent, the kingdom of God is at hand.
We believe it came.
The kingdom of God, God’s rule and reign, broke into our world.
But we still pray, may your kingdom come, may your will be done.
So it’s both.
So let’s drill down a little bit with some depth
On what we mean when we say the kingdom of God.
Again, my definition: the kingdom of God is the rule of God in Christ on the earth.
through the church.
So the church is not the kingdom.
The church does not build the kingdom.
The church does not
Spread the kingdom.
The kingdom is God’s authority.
It’s something, the kingdom is something that God has within God’s own self.
It is God’s rule and reign.
And because we’re talking about authority and reigning, what we really mean is politics.
The kingdom of God is political.
Now, kingdom is archaic language.
We who live in liberal democracies
don’t have a day-to-day framework to understand kings, queens, monarchy, and realms that are ruled like that
But if you know medieval history, you have some imagination around what a kingdom looked like.
Right?
There would be a king, he would sit on a throne in a castle.
and he would rule and reign over his realm.
So the king was in charge.
The king set the rules
He was the sovereign over his kingdom.
So when we speak of the kingdom of God,
We are talking about what God is sovereign over, what God is ruling and reigning over.
And this is a very political
Way of talking about God’s rule and reign.
Again, for those who see the kingdom of God
as personal private spirituality, that the kingdom of God is simply what God does within us, misses
The political implications of the kingdom of God.
Now, Jesus said the kingdom is within us
So again, the rule and reign of God is not just in how we organize ourselves in society, but it’s also how our heart is ordered.
So again, it’s a it’s a both and.
The kingdom of God’s political reach or sovereign reach is not only in interpersonal relationships, but also the ordering of our hearts.
But I think many Christians have missed the political overtones.
of the kingdom of God.
So the kingdom of God is political, but it’s not partisan.
Again, when I say political, if you live in the United States, you’re thinking about current
American politics, particularly the stark division between the political right and the political left
The kingdom of God is political, but it’s not partisan.
The kingdom of God does not fit neatly into the political right, and it doesn’t fit neatly into the political left.
If in your mind, your political party affiliation, and ideology is synonymous with the Christian faith,
You have now entered into idolatry.
You now have a politicized faith.
You have now entered into syncretism.
Your faith is being diluted by your politics
No, the kingdom of God is political, but it transcends the modern political spectrum left and right.
And so if you want to understand the political nature of the kingdom of God, you can find it in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 through 7.
The Sermon on the Mount is not only about interpersonal relationships.
The Sermon on the Mount is a political manifesto
The beatitudes that open up the sermon in Matthew chapter 5, this is the proclamation.
of the gospel of the kingdom.
The beatitudes are not principles for us to apply.
The beatitudes are announcements
Who is blessed in the kingdom of God?
And so it’s a proclamation.
The rest of the Sermon of the Mount is teaching.
drawing out the implications of what it looks like for us to live as kingdom citizens.
And so it’s important, I think, for you to read Matthew 5, 6, and 7
and hear Jesus as saying, this is not just how you get along in life.
Don’t commit adultery, don’t have lust in your heart, don’t kill people, don’t have anger in your heart, don’t take oaths.
It’s not just principles.
But Jesus is laying out his political agenda, particularly in the Beatitudes
And so if you just look at the Beatitudes, who’s blessed?
The peacemakers, the pure in heart, the persecuted, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, those who are spiritually poor.
If you take the Beatitudes and you apply it to modern political situations, what you find is that the particularly in American politics, the political on the left and the political right
They don’t fall in line completely with Jesus.
They’ll have parts of it.
But there is no human political platform or ideology that completely encapsulates
The teachings of Jesus and the politics of Jesus.
So once you see that Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is giving us a fresh
Political imagination, what are we to do?
Well, I would say first do what Jesus said when he first preached, and that is repent
for the kingdom of God is at hand.
Or maybe I can tweak it a little bit to say to you today, repent, for the politics of Jesus is at hand.
Lay down all your political assumptions, all your political values, all of them have to be submitted to King Jesus.
This is what discipleship looks like.
Discipleship is not a matter of getting Jesus to endorse all of your opinions and values and desires.
Discipleship is choosing to die to yourself.
In order to follow Jesus, denying yourself, dying to self, taking up your cross
I know there are many Christians that so struggle with this because their mind has been seduced.
By what Walter Brugemann calls the totalizing of empire.
The spirit of empire
Is alive in the political right and the political left, and they want you to see everything through their lens
And so I believe Jesus is calling us to repent, to rethink, to realign ourselves with the political imagination of Jesus.
I think once we can do that, we can start dismantling how we view politics and begin to piece together
A view of the peaceable kingdom of God, which is here for those of us who have said yes to King Jesus, for those of us who have been baptized and identified.
With the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus, we now have kingdom eyes.
We have now seen a glimpse of God’s peaceable kingdom.
And it is a kingdom where we do not hurt or destroy.
It is a kingdom where we learn war no more.
It is a kingdom dominated by love, love for neighbor, serving one another, helping one another, extending mercy.
to one another.
We’ve seen that kingdom.
And if you have this idea that that kingdom’s only in the future, let me invite you to repent.
Believe the good news.
The kingdom of God.
Is at hand.
Well, that’s all that I have for you for this episode.
Thank you for joining me.
Go in peace and be kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.