Volume 4, Issue 3, January 1996

THE REALM OF GOD AMONG US

Most of us are hungry to be a part of a better world than the one we now have. Our faith empowers us to vision a healthier world, a better society, and a future to look forward to.

The prophetic vision is a vision of what it would be like for the realm of God to prevail. Such a vision tells us we cannot be content with the way things are, because the way things are is not what we trust is intended for us. To make the vision reality we have to turn things around, make changes, and turn from being visionaries to revolutionaries.

Jesus was a revolutionary. He sought drastic changes in the social and religious life of his day. When he was asked by the leader of the synagogue in his home town of Nazareth to speak he read from the prophecy of the third Isaiah concerning what one possessed of the spirit of God would proclaim: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour".

This speaks against narrow-mindedness and selfishness. It proclaims the love of God is for everyone.

So Jesus took up the gantlet and became a social reformer, a prophet, a revolutionary for the realm of God.

All Jesus' thinking centred about the hope of the realm of God. His moral teachings get real meaning only when viewed from this centre.

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"Religion NOW" is published in limited edition by the Rev. Ross E. Readhead, B.A., B.D., Certificate of Corrections, McMaster University, in the interest of furthering knowledge and participation in religion. Dialogue is invited and welcomed.