analogies on Kingdoms

I was recently at a eight-year-old’s birthday party, and at this birthday party there was a piñata. All of the kids took turns whacking a paper mache shark with a PVC pipe until eventually the shark b...

In The Lord of the Rings, Denethor is a steward of Gondor, the great kingdom of men. He comes from a long line of stewards who have ruled Gondor as temporary lords while the kingdom waited for the n...

First, what is the ascension? It is not simply Jesus’ return from the earth to heaven. It is a new enthronement for Jesus, bringing a new relationship with us and with the whole world.  …In fact, t...

What is the Kingdom of God, according to the prophet Zechariah (Zech. 8:1-8)? It is a public park! It is a park where old people are no longer cold and lonely and ill and senile, but participants in a...

Being childlike does not save us, nor is it meritorious in itself. One can be childlike and be very far from the kingdom. Jesus is telling us that in order to enter the kingdom we need to have the tru...

Continually, Jesus described the Kingdom in terms that one can’t point to and identify specifically—but in every story, the Kingdom was the essential piece. The Kingdom is mixed in and present already...

Author and Episcopal priest Stephanie Spellers suggests that instead of imagining a kingdom, a better way for us to understand what Jesus had in mind when he spoke of this script, this new way of livi...

The kings Of history are rewarded with many impressive descriptors: majestic, exalted, glorious, sovereign. Men and women bow before such heights of nobility; even the eyes of wealth and status fall t...

Do you remember seeing the golden sarcophagus of the pharaoh Tutankhamun ? What has he got in his hands? If you remembered that he was holding a shepherd’s crook, you’re right (he is also holding a...

There are some stories that continue to be told generations after they were originally written. The tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table still captivates those eager to hear about a ...

In his wonderful book, God’s Big Picture, Vaughan Roberts gives readers an overview of the Bible, focusing on the importance of context for developing a deeper understanding of holy scripture. In this...

Since Jesus isn’t attached to the same things we are, he can take the God-view, which is about more than redeeming our individual lives. God means to redeem the world, which is going to require some m...

Elite athletes will sometimes say that “game recognizes game” (or occasionally more grammatically suspect variants of that). By this is meant that someone who is particularly skilled at something is u...

In describing the role of the Israelites to the Gentiles, author Vaughan Roberts draws an analogy from a former prince: When the future George VI was a young boy, his mother, Queen Mary, often use...

In 410 AD, Rome fell to the barbarian Germanic tribe known as the Visigoths, led by King Alaric. The idea of a “Christian” city (and empire) falling was a terrible defeat, not just militarily, but als...

When you purchase a game of checkers, you’ll notice that on the top of each piece is the insignia of a crown. That is because each checker was created to become a king. Once it is crowned because it h...

The actress Brooke Shields has quite an impressive family mosaic. Hanging from her family tree are the likes of Charlemagne, El Cid, William the Conqueror, the royal houses of virtually every European...

Jesus’ parable [of the banquet in Luke 14:16-23] makes it clear that there are business and career invitations . Some people had real estate that demanded attention, and others had invested in ox...

If I am asked to break the gospel and a gospel culture down into simple statements, I would borrow imagery from the man from Northern Ireland, from Belfast, C. S. Lewis. From The Lion, the Witch and t...

In his excellent book, An Unhurried Life, Alan Fadling contrasts our overly busy lives with a vision of the kingdom from Isaiah chapter 61: Isaiah envisioned a kingdom in which those people in need ...

Bernard de Fontenelle (1657–1757), was a French author and philosopher, and was once engaged in conversation with the “Sun King”,  Louis XIV.  Louis began expressing his skepticism about the existence...

In 1927 Bruce Barton wrote a multi-faceted parable that is believed to be based on a true story. This story is related to the work of Sir Christopher Wren, whose design of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Lond...

In Romans 8:18, Paul describes the future of those who persevere in the faith: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us....

In this modern day parable, Alan Fadling describes a king and his two servants. Each of the servants desires to do the will of the king, but they approach their work very differently: One of the serv...

The apostle Paul said, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on thin...

We sometimes imagine surrender to God as emotional starvation. Every pleasure feels suspicious, and every passion feels in competition with our love of God. We think that the more miserable we are in ...

This concept [the parish system] has helped Christians understand how interconnected all the pieces within a community are and the importance of pursuing the common good there. Jesus’ call to be peace...

In his excellent little book, A Testament of Devotion , written almost a hundred years ago, Thomas Kelly describes the tension that all ministries must live in; the focus on this world or the wor...

One of the most fascinating features of the Bible is that it tells what is ahead for our world. Both Old and New Testaments contend that history is moving to a climax and that the sovereign God is in ...

In his excellent little book, A Testament of Devotion , Thomas Kelly describes the inward reality that governs the course of history: Out in front of us is the drama of men and of nations, seethi...