The whole point of the kingdom of God is Jesus has come to bear witness to the true truth, which is nonviolent. When God wants to take charge of the world, he doesn't send in the tanks. He sends in the poor and the meek.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the nonviolent approach of bringing about change through humility and service rather than force and power.
N. T. Wright highlights the essence of the kingdom of God as a realm where true strength is demonstrated through nonviolence and the actions of those who are humble. The quote suggests that when God seeks to inspire change in the world, He does so not through grand displays of power or violence, but through the meek and the poor, revealing a deeper moral truth that challenges worldly notions of strength and leadership.
In practice
In a sermon about peace and justice, you might use this quote to illustrate the importance of nonviolent activism.
The resurrection completes the inauguration of God's kingdom. . . . It is the decisive event demonstrating thet God's kingdom really has been launched on earth as it is in heaven." "The message of Easter is that God's new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you're now invited to belong to it.
True worship doesn't put on a show or make a fuss; true worship isn't forced, isn't half-hearted, doesn't keep looking at its watch, doesn't worry what the person in the next pew is doing. True worship is open to God, adoring God, waiting for God, trusting God even in the dark.
Most of the things that really matter require faith. How do I know that my wife loves me? How do I know that Mozarts Jupiter Symphony is sublime and beautiful? There are all sorts of things which come at a more lowly level than that - How do I know that two plus two equals four? There are different layers, different types of knowing.
To get overprotective about particular readings of the Bible is always in danger of idolatry.
Without God's Spirit, there is nothing we can do that will count for God's kingdom. Without God's Spirit, the church simply can't be the church.
I'm not a universalist, and the way I talk about final loss is this: People worship idols - money, whatever. Their humanness gets reshaped around the idol - you become like what you worship. That's one of the basic spiritual laws.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
No one gets angry at a mathematician or a physicist whom he or she doesn't understand, or at someone who speaks a foreign language, but rather at someone who tampers with your own language.
Let no one delay the study of philosophy while young nor weary of it when old.
Every human being in that case resembles Christ in his loneliness; and that is the hardest part, that's real hunger.
A free, virtuous, and enlightened people must know full well the great principles and causes upon which their happiness depends.
Man stands alone in the universe, responsible for his condition, likely to remain in a lowly state, but free to reach above the stars.
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