Page 11 - TH130 Kingdom of God A4 Final

CH A P T E R 1

The Meaning

of the

Kingdom

he message of the kingdom of God has been called the “master
thought” of Jesus (Kuzmic, 522). It was the central theme of His
Tpreaching and teaching. However, until recently it has been an
almost forgotten theme in evangelical and Pentecostal studies. It is
not without significance that in the Gospels the word kingdom occurs
127 times in 119 verses, but the word church occurs only three times
in two verses (Matthew 16:18; 18:17). Note these facts concerning the
kingdom of God:

• It is the subject of most of Jesus’ parables.
• It is a major theme of the book of Acts, which begins and ends with
an emphasis on the kingdom of God (1:3, 6; 28:23, 31).
• It is referred to seventeen times in the New Testament epistles
(Romans 14:17; 1 Corinthians 4:20; 6:9–10; 15:50; Galatians 5:21;
Ephesians 5:5; Colossians 1:12–13; 4:11; 1 Thessalonians 2:12;
2 Thessalonians 4:1, 18; Hebrews 1:8; 12:28; James 2:5; 2 Peter 1:11).

As we shall discover in this study, the kingdom of God is a prominent
theme in both the Old and the New Testaments.

::: 3 :::