Lord's Prayer: your [God's] Kingdom

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yesterday i had planned to write on "give us today our daily bread" but some other blog posts extolling NT Wright's interpretation of the gospel/good news and my reading Sunday morning has brought me back to God's kingdom. I'm power reading through the Bible. Since January, i've been reading 18 pages a day and i finished the Old Testament on Saturday, March 10th. Sunday i started the NT. i'm reading Reese's chronological Bible so the Gospels are harmonized.
Mark 13:14-15 After John was put in prison, Jesus went in to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" (NIV)
What is the good news? That the Kingdom of God is near.
What is the response to the good news? Repent and believe, aka, convert.
is that a fair aka?
Matthew 4:17, 23 From that time on Jesus began to preach, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near."...Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.
I don't read Wright's books. i've disagreed with his thoughts of his before. But others who quote him with favor say the gospel is God-focused and we make the mistake of emphasizing the individual's need to repent and believe. Here is a quote of Wright's,
The word “gospel” and the phrase “the gospel” have come to denote, especially in certain circles within the church, something that in older theology would be called an ordo saluits, an order of salvation. “The gospel” is supposed to be a description of how people get saved; of the theological mechanism whereby, in some people’s language, Jesus becomes my personal savior; in other languages I admit my sin, believe he died for me, and commit my life to him. In many church circles, if you hear something like that, people will say “the gospel has been preached”. Conversely, if you hear a sermon, in which the claims of Christ are related to the political or ecological questions of the day, some people will say that, well, perhaps the subject was interesting, but the gospel wasn’t preached…In the present case, I am perfectly comfortable with what people normally mean when they say “the gospel”. I just don’t think it is what Paul means. [What St. Paul Really Said. Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? (pg 40-41)]

my assumption is that Paul wouldn't disagree with Jesus and Jesus proclamation of the good news focused on God's kingdom and our individual response to it.
John 3:3, 5 In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."... Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, unless a man is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." This is from Jesus' semi-private discussion with Nicodemus, a religious leader. Jesus didn't have political or ecological discussions. Paul didn't either. here is a previous blog post on politics and God's kingdom.
i think politics and ecological issues are useful when framed in the context of loving our neighbors, but they are an extension of the good news, just examples and not the Gospel. and i've written before that the social gospel as a result of conversion throughout the church's history instead of a means to conversion. in other words, we love our neighbor because we've been loved, not to show them how great kingdom citizenship is.
Luke 17:20, 21 Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come visibly, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you."
We are strangers and sojourners on this world. We bring the good news with us. We carry with us the kingdom. We are known by our love. We demonstrate our love for others by warning them about the coming judgment and the freedom from it through God's son first. We demonstrate our love by inviting everyone from the highways to the by-ways into the kingdom. We demonstrate our love by continuing to serve others even though they have rejected the invitation to join.
By proclaiming first and serving second we avoid the sales con of schwag for business. Even worse, we don't want the reputation of time share sales people who offer you free plane tickets and weekends away with the catch of having to listen to a 90 minute sales pitch, and a hard pitch too.
so i'm at the point where i ask myself, what's the difference between rambling and preaching? whether the invitation is given to enter into the kingdom....
update: a 4 page paper by F.F. Bruce here
Lord let your kingdom come and enlarge and grow in us and among us.

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