Kingdoms, Nations....

             Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”

 

            According to the study notes, “in your midst” may also be translated “within you.” So, here’s the grammar issue. Is your singular or plural? There are some dialects of English in which there is a plural form of you that isn’t you. Did Jesus say that the kingdom of God is in me/you/her/him individually, or in the midst of all of us? This is an important question because there are people who believe that the kingdom of God is in each and every individual (or perhaps all but the most wicked, terrible monsters) whether that individual believes in God and acts according to what Scripture teaches or not. This has been referred to as Panentheism, so that God is in everything and everyone.

            According to William D. Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek, the pronoun Jesus used was plural. Jesus was standing among them and influencing them, which meant the kingdom was among them. The kingdom of God can be in our midst, without the kingdom of God being in each person present.

          That idea is old news in some ways. We’ve considered it before. We haven’t considered what Jesus says about the kingdom being something that can’t be observed. Some may argue that a kingdom that can’t be observed doesn’t exist. But if you go to the border between any two nations, or between any two states, is there really anything that isn’t man-made that differentiates the two? You can go to the capitol and watch politicians in action. There are buildings, and you’ll see flags and emblems. Government is more something that is done than something with any objective existence. Ultimately, government of any sort may be a social construct, meaning that it is a complex concept or practice shared by a society or group, not arising from any natural or innate source but built on the assumptions upheld, usually tacitly, by its members. We agree to abide by certain rules. Rules we don’t like, we can work to change. Officials, likewise.

          So what Jesus said about the kingdom of God is no different from what may be said about any other nation. The buildings, leaders, emblems, flags, and names aren’t the nation or the kingdom. The nation or kingdom involves the nature of the relationship between leaders and followers. In the case of the kingdom of God, the relationship between God and us. This may not seem like a spiritual insight, but so often when we mention something “spiritual,” people want to treat it as if it is something substantially and fundamentally different from what we experience daily.