Matthew 4:17

From: David A Bielby (dbielby@juno.com)
Date: Thu Dec 02 1999 - 10:55:14 EST


The other day my inlaws pulled up in front of the house and my kids
called out..."they're here!".......but they were still in the street in
their car....still 'coming near'. Much like the sense of the perfect in
Matt 24:46. With EGGIZW it seems like the Perfect tense overlaps with
commonly used phrases like the illustration above. So, even if the
lexicons do not mention a specific way to express this concept, it seems
very reasonable to translate this as 'The Kingdom of heaven is here...or
the Kingdom of heaven has arrived...'

Another thought....regarding the spatial element. Often the term heaven
is coupled with earth in the scriptures. Doesn't the term heaven extend
beyond the natural sky above the earth....Isn't the nature of the term
'heaven' spatial? So, why couldn't this be spatial--but not spatial in
the natural sense...spatial in the sense of the supernatural moving into
the natural? From my perspective it doesn't flow counter to the GNT, but
seems to fit.

Heaven here would include the spiritual realm beyond the natural
realm....and that it would most likely refer to the spiritual realm
attempting to bring justice and judgement where justice is resisted into
the natural realm. So, the mandate...Repent.

So, I'm wrestling with the concept that the Kingdom of heaven can come
near or even be here right next to the earthly domain that we normally
live in every day. And that when this happens, normal earthly life can
be disrupted....things like repentance are more urgent because the divine
opportunity is greater now than ever before. This kind of thinking leads
me to believe that there must be some sort of grace or ability that is
released by the Kingdom of heaven's nearness into the lives of those who
are close spatially to it.

A third question: the concept Kingdom of heaven being used in Matthew
instead of Kingdom of God made sense to me. Then I searched Matthew and
found he does use the term Kingdom of God (Matt 6:33). So, I don't feel
so confident that Matthew wanted to avoid saying the term Kingdom of
God....What if Matthew was just reporting what Jesus said and Jesus
intended to draw a distinction between the terms? What if there was a
distinction between the terms in Jesus' mind? Then, how would we
distinguish between Kingdom of heaven and Kingdom of God...as found in
Matthew?

Sincerely,

Dave Bielby
the Vineyard
Normal/Bloomington, Illinois USA
dbielby@juno.com
Phone: 309-827-8292

David Bielby
Vineyard Christian Fellowship
Bloomington/Normal, Illinois USA
dbielby@juno.com www.bloomington.vineyard.org
Phone: 309-827-8292

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