The Kindom of God in Luke

Luke has a fascinating view of the Kingdom of God. His gospel is full of stories and messages from Jesus describing what the Kingdom of God is like. Jesus was revolutionary in the way that he depicted the Kingdom. He included all sorts of people that most Israelites would never have dreamed of including, such as the poor and the Gentiles. Jesus also made it clear that there was a cost to enter the Kingdom of God. Modern readers can understand many of the astounding statements that Jesus made; however, they often do not pick up on the cultural nuances that color every aspect of the Bible. Often, words and expressions meant completely different things to the ancient Israelites than they mean to modern readers. Thus, it is important to understand the social climate of first century Israel, the atmosphere that Jesus lived and taught in, in order to fully understand what Jesus is telling us. When we do understand what He is telling us, the gospel of Luke gives a fascinating view of the Kingdom of God.

The Israelites all believed that the Kingdom of God referred to an earthly kingdom, which God would physically rule. They thought that this kingdom would be for the Israelites alone, and would come about when the Messiah drove out the Romans, Gentiles, and Samaritans. However, as Jesus' disciples eventually learned, the Kingdom of God actually referred to a heavenly, spiritual kingdom, built for all people. There are three separate views of Jesus' teachings about the Kingdom of God. This subject is called eschatology, which is defined as a branch of theology that deals with the end of the world. However, in a broader sense it deals with God's kingship and the ways in which he influences the world (Drane 116).

Albert Schweitzer came up with the idea of futurist eschatology in the early nineteen hundreds. Schweitzer believed that Jesus expected the end of the earth to come only a very short time after He started His ministry. When Kingdom of God did not arrive when He expected, Jesus went to Jerusalem in hopes of forcing God to end the world. This resulted in His death, and Jesus realized on the cross that God had abandoned Him. Schweitzer believed that even though Jesus was misguided, His faith in His beliefs gives His followers a powerful example to follow. Because he thought that Jesus was misguided, however, Schweitzer decided that everything Jesus taught does not hold true today. Schweitzer had a skeptical attitude towards much of the New Testament, deeming that many of Jesus' statements never came true. However, most Christians today reject Schweitzer's ideas, realizing that they are not consistent with biblical truths. After all, if Jesus' death did not fulfill its purpose as Schweitzer stated, then the whole foundation of Christianity is destroyed. (Drane 116, 117)

C.H. Dodd also came up with his idea, called realized eschatology, in the early twentieth century. At the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Dodd explained that Jesus believed that the Kingdom of God was contained inside of Himself. Jesus' miracles seem to show that God was forming the kingdom through His life. However, Dodd realized that some things in the gospels, such as the parables discussing the last judgment, conflict with the idea of realized eschatology. He explained that these parables actually deal with the challenges of understanding the Kingdom of God. Though Dodd's theory makes some parts of the gospels easier to understand, it ultimately proves to be as unacceptable as futurist eschatology. Though realized eschatology makes some parts of the gospels easier to understand, there are many more parts that don't match up with this theory. Also, it is clear in the New Testament that the earliest Christians fully expected Jesus to return and establish the Kingdom of God. (Drane 118)

The third viewpoint of the nature of the kingdom, which meshes the other two views, is called inaugurated eschatology. It explains that God's kingdom has already come through Jesus, but that it will not be completely fulfilled until the last day. This seems to be the view that of the gospels, as they have key points from both futurist eschatology and inaugurated eschatology (Drane 119). According to this view, we are called to act as if God's kingdom has already arrived, and obey Jesus' commands. We also must prepare for the future coming of the Kingdom of God, and spread the Good News to all people.

Jesus stresses the issue of inclusion very often throughout His ministry. He makes it a point to show the people that everyone who follows Him will go to heaven. The Israelites believed that God rewarded the righteous by giving them wealth and health. They also believed that God's 'chosen people' were Israelites, specifically the men. Because of this, they thought that the sick, poor, and Gentiles must be sinful, and deserve God's wrath. However, Jesus turns this idea completely on its head by accepting women, Gentiles, the sick, and the crippled, as well as other socially unacceptable people. Though other religious leaders would never have allowed such people to follow them, Jesus does allow them to become His followers, and welcomes them with open arms. Jesus' love for the socially oppressed can be seen many times in the gospel of Luke.

Jesus had great compassion for the poor and sick. According to pages seventy-six and seventy-eight of The Upside-Down Kingdom, ten percent of Israelites were rich, while the other ninety percent were poor, many living in extreme poverty. The rich looked down upon the poor people, and rarely did anything to help their situation. In fact, many of the rich considered the poor to be little more than pests, annoying and useless. The poor often couldn't afford the temple tax, which made the religious leaders even more irritated with them (cf. Kryabill 83). The religious leaders were great sticklers for rules, and the fact that the poor often escaped punishment for not tithing angered them. Jesus was against this rift between the rich and the poor, and showed it through his teachings. In Luke 6:20-21, Jesus preaches against economic injustice by stating that the poor and hungry are blessed, and will receive their rewards in heaven. In contrast, he states in Luke 6:24-25 that those who are rich and full are receiving their reward now, and will suffer later. He states this idea even more strongly through the parable of Lazarus, in Luke 16:19-31.

In Luke 12:16-21, Jesus tells another parable about greed, called the parable of the rich man. After gathering his crops, the rich man decided to build bigger barns in order to hold all of his grain. Modern readers do not understand the implications of this decision, because they do not understand the laws of ancient Israel. Every seventh year, called the year of restoration, the Israelites were told to let their lands lay fallow. That way, the land could rest and poor people without their own land could use it to grow some food. When harvesting their crops, landowners were ordered to leave the corners of the field and the dropped grain to the poor. Because the rich man chose to gather all of his grain and build bigger barns, rather than leave the extra to the poor, he was directly disobeying God's laws. In response to his actions, God called the man a fool for being greedy and not giving his extra grain to the poor. The modern reader only realizes how tremendous God's anger was when they understand that God was not simply calling the man a clown or half-wit. Instead, the biblical definition of 'fool' is 'someone who states that there is no God' (Killbray 117). Thus, by calling him a fool, God damned the man. These two parables make it perfectly clear that it is the greediness of the rich, and their negligence of the poor, that Jesus hates (cf. Kraybill 107).

In Luke 4:3-4, Satan tempts Jesus by asking Him to turn stones into bread after He had been fasting for forty days. It is often thought by readers that this was a temptation simply because Jesus was hungry. While this was part of the temptation, it was not all of it. As explained on page seventy-five of The Upside-Down Kingdom, Satan was trying to tempt Jesus into feeding all of the poor and hungry people. Jesus grew up fairly poor, so He was well aware of the people's suffering. Though He longed to relieve their suffering, He knew that this would bring problems for him. Food is the fastest way to the heart of people, and Jesus knew that if He fed them, they would immediately attempt to crown Him king. This would keep Jesus' ministry and the crucifixion form occurring, so Jesus knew that He couldn't miraculously feed everyone in Israel. He also realized that while food gathers followers, it does not make serious disciples (Kraybill 85). Only on one occasion did He do a miraculous feeding by giving food to five thousand men, plus women and children, as is related in Luke 9:12-17. The Israelites believed that the poor and hungry deserved their lot in life, yet Jesus showed that this is not true in a very powerful way. In fact, as He says in Luke 18:25, the rich find it much more difficult than the poor to get into the Kingdom of God. The poor find it fairly easy to drop everything and follow Jesus, simply because they have so few earthly possessions to leave behind. The rich, on the other hand, find it extraordinarily difficult to stop clinging to their possessions and place their entire trust in Jesus (cf. Kraybill 120). For Jesus, his entire ministry was about the inclusion of those who needed him. "For the Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost." (Luke 19:10)

All Israelites, rich and poor, high priests and innkeepers, hated the Gentiles and the Samaritans. They considered these people to be unclean, and inferior since they were not God's chosen people. However, Jesus made it clear that God loved the Gentiles and Israelites equally. Jesus left out the end of the Isaiah passage He quoted in Luke 4:18-19, something that is often missed by modern-day readers. However, this omission shocked and infuriated the religious leaders who were listening to him speak (Kraybill 90). The part that Jesus omitted states that a Day of Vengeance will come when God will punish the wicked. He was implying that the wicked would be shown mercy, and to the Israelites, the 'wicked' was simply another word for the Gentiles and the Samaritans (Kraybill 90). Jesus' suggestion that the Israelites' unholy and unclean neighbors would also be saved by the Messiah seemed like blasphemy. No longer was the restoration of Jubilee just for the Israelites, Jesus was saying. Now it was for all people. As this statement went completely against all that the Israelites believed about the Messiah and themselves, they understandably grew furious. The purpose of the Isaiah passage was to proclaim good news to the oppressed and to proclaim the year of Jubilee. The year of Jubilee occurred at the seventh seven-year restoration period, or approximately every fifty years. In this year, land was restored to its original owner and all slaves were set free. It was a year of great celebration for the Israelites. By choosing to recite the Isaiah passage, Jesus was indicating that He is the Messiah, the one sent by God to bring Jubilee to all (Kraybill 99). He is stating that he will free the oppressed; and not only that, but he includes the Gentiles in this statement. The Israelites did not mind that Jesus was calling Himself the Messiah, but they absolutely hated the Gentiles. The people of Nazareth, who had watched him grow up, could not believe the audacity of the carpenter's son. Filled with rage, they attempted to throw him off of a cliff in Luke 4:29. Jesus escaped by passing through the crowd, and went on to preach in other areas of Galilee.

Women are highly elevated in Luke's gospel. It is thought that Luke focused on the women because he was a Gentile, and knew what it felt like to be excluded. He may have also done it because he was a physician, and therefore was involved with helping women on a daily basis. From the very beginning of his gospel, Luke tells stories from the women's point of view. In chapter one, Elizabeth and Mary are given word that they are going to give birth. Mary's song of praise to God is recorded in Luke 1:46-55. It is easy to see through parables and other passages that Jesus also cared deeply for women. Unlike any other religious leaders of his time, Jesus allowed women to follow Him, and treated them as equals with His male followers. It says in Luke 8:2-3 that several women followed Jesus, and He considered them to be His disciples. Some of these women even provided for Jesus with their own money. In Jesus' time, this would have been absolutely shocking and wrong. Later, in Luke 10:38-42, Jesus taught His disciples in the home of a woman named Martha. Martha immediately started to prepare food for Jesus and His followers, but her sister Mary sat at Jesus' feet and listened to Him. Martha grew angry with her sister for what she saw as laziness, but Jesus told her that Mary was doing what was better. This episode serves to emphasize Jesus' radical views towards women, as all other rabbis would have banished Mary to the kitchen before even starting to teach.

Luke 7:11-17 records a part of Jesus' ministry that shows His compassion towards women. A dead man was being carried out of the town of Nain as Jesus and His disciples were nearing the gates. Nearby stood his mother, and somehow Jesus discovered that she was a widow, and the dead man was her only son. Jesus told the man to rise, and he sat up and spoke to those around him. At first, it seems as though this story is an act of compassion towards the dead man. However, someone who understands ancient Jewish culture quickly realizes that Jesus is being compassionate towards the woman. In ancient Israel, a woman without any man to care for her was destitute. Because they could not own or inherit property, women without male relatives were forced to live on the streets. By raising her son from the dead, Jesus was giving this woman a new chance at life (cf. Lehman-Schletewitz). A similar outcome occurred for the woman in Luke 8:43-48. This woman had been hemorrhaging for twelve years, and when she saw Jesus she touched His clothes. She came forward when He asked who had touched Him, and He said that her faith had made her well. Anyone who was bleeding like this would have been considered unclean. Thus, for twelve years the woman had been excluded from religious and social events. When she was healed, she was healed not only physically but also emotionally and spiritually. In Luke 23:55-24:11 is written a powerful testimony of the changes Jesus made for women. This passage records the story of the women going to the tomb and being told by angels that Jesus had risen. As many scholars today have pointed out, in biblical times women were not considered reliable witnesses. If Jesus' resurrection were a story created by the disciples, they would not have used women as principle characters in the story. Because they are recorded as the first ones to learn of Jesus' resurrection, the story smacks of truth. It also shows that Jesus thinks that women are equal to men, as He made clear throughout His ministry. As Professor Lehman-Shletewitz so aptly put it, "women belong at the feet of Jesus, learning to be His disciples."

Like women, children were also considered inferior to men. They were placed under the care of their mother, and grown men paid little attention to them until they were of marriageable or student age. In Luke 8:49-56, Jesus raised a girl from the dead after her father begged for Him to heal her. At another time, Jesus drove a demon out of a young boy (Luke 9:37-43). Shortly after that episode, in Luke 9:46-48, the disciples began to argue over which of them was the greatest. Overhearing them, Jesus took a young child and told them, "Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least of among all of you is the greatest." (Luke 9:48) This verse shows Jesus' tremendous love of little ones. Jesus was telling his disciples that God greatly cares for and identifies with those who are considered unimportant. In Luke 18:15-17, Jesus emphasized the significance of children once more. He praised their simple faith and humility by stating that anyone who wishes to enter heaven must be like a little child. Through these passages, Jesus showed that children matter, and that we would even do well to learn from them.

There is a great cost to entering the Kingdom of God, as many Christians know. However, there are also many Christians who believe that there is no cost at all. As they understand it, God's grace means no-strings-attached, all-is-forgiven, eternal life (cf. Bonhoeffer 3). God does give us grace, but Christians must constantly fight against the temptations of sin and the ungodly ways of the world. That is the cost of discipleship. The grace that God gives us "is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock (Bonhoeffer 5)." Jesus calls us to follow Him, and to do so, we must follow in His footsteps. In Luke 9:23, He tells us, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." This is a very clear explanation of the suffering one can expect to receive if one follows Jesus. While this does not necessarily mean that one will experience physical anguish, nearly all Christians are hurt emotionally and spiritually by others at some point during their lives. In Luke 9:57-62, several people promise to Jesus that they will become His disciples. However, Jesus makes it clear through His responses that the Kingdom of God does not wait for anyone- the time is almost here.

Jesus also states that Christians often live lives of discomfort, because of both physical hardships and because of possible separation from family and friends. In Luke 14:26-33, Jesus warns the crowd that the price of following Him is high. He tells them that they must hate life and family and carry a cross in order to be His disciple. Jesus is not literally saying that we should hate our families; rather, this is a warning that following Him has a very high cost, and should not be done lightly. Then Jesus tells three parables to emphasize His point. A man who wants to build a tower first ensures that he has enough money to construct it. A king who wants to wage war against another first ensures that he has enough men to win the battle. In the same way, if the people who want to become His disciples will not give up everything for Him, they should not even try to follow Him. In the third parable, Jesus compares salt to discipleship. Salt is very good, as is discipleship. However, if the salt loses its saltiness, or the disciple is unwilling to give up everything for God, they are both useless (Hazard 2). This hard-hitting message means that all people should think seriously about their faith in God, and how much they are willing to give up to Him, before committing to becoming a Christian. For "when Christ calls a man, He bids him to come and die" (quoted in Hazard 2).

The Kingdom of God is a fascinating subject that should not be taken lightly. Through the gospel of Luke, the views of Jesus on the kingdom can easily be seen. He included all people in His heavenly kingdom, especially those who are not thought well of on earth. There are different views on the nature of the kingdom, but we can be sure that it came when Jesus started His ministry. We can also be sure that the kingdom will come when Jesus returns on the last day. The cost of entrance to the kingdom is high, but the cost in worth it for the chance to follow after Jesus. We will always hunger for the Kingdom of God, but we must remember that in some ways, it is already here. It is therefore our duty as Christians to care for the oppressed and suffer for our faith if necessary, following in our Lord's footsteps.

Works Cited

Coogan, Michael D. The New Oxford Annotated Bible. Edition Three. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2001.

Kraybill, Donald B. The Upside-Down Kingdom. Edition Two. Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1990.

Drane, John. Introducing the New Testament: Completely Revised and Updated. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2001.

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship. New York, New York: SCM Press Ltd., 1959.

Hazard, Darrell A. "The Cost of Discipleship." The Cost of Discipleship. 2008.

Professor Lehman-Schletewitz. Notes. 23 February 2009.