Kingdom Talk

At the conference I'm at, we are going through the Gospel of Mark. I have done inductive studies on Mark many times and in Kazakhstan I taught a class on Introduction to Inductive Bible Study Methodologies, using Mark. One thing you can't escape if you look at Mark in its own context is the absolute emphasis on the Kingdom of God. It is the central part of the teaching of Jesus. The problem is that often we either skip over that or we look at many of the parts of Mark outside of that lens. Or we assume the Kingdom of God = the Church and move on. Yet, when reading carefully and allowing the radical nature of Jesus's teachings to soak in, one cannot help but be challenged and confronted anew with every serious reading of Mark. Are we really living as participants in God's Kingdom? Are we reflecting the values Jesus talks about that are central to the Kingdom? Do we allow ourselves to see past the surface appearance and dig into the assumptions that we make about our faith, our church, and our culture? Well, when starting this blog, I promised myself I'd keep the entries short. So I'll stop by simply encouraging a good, inductive read of Mark. I may make additional comments about the Kingdom in future entries as well. Stay tuned...