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10th May 2024
FridayReflection
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'BibleProject Scholar Team' shares
How to Seek the Kingdom of God Now
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Why do we deadbolt our doors at night?
Why lock our cars or windows or computers?
With threats of injury and loss lurking everywhere, we learn to love personal security above anything else.
Jesus values security too.
The New Testament authors do not portray him as reckless or blind to our reality.
But when he joins us in this painful world, he still chooses to live with love for God and others above anything else, even when doing so includes suffering, injury, and loss.
Is Jesus just a unique hero doing something no one else can?
Or is he showing us a way to live on Earth right now?
Imagine living in a world where you know that nobody will harm you in any way.
It's a world where security is rooted in common love for one another, not protection against one another.
It's also an abundant world, so there's no hoarding or competing for resources.
How would you live differently if you lived every day in a world like this?
Jesus saw himself bringing this kind of life to our world through what he called "the Kingdom of God," by teaching people about the good news of God's Kingdom.
For context, let's explore a few key points in the larger biblical story.
It will help bring into clearer focus, especially in terms of what it means to "seek first the Kingdom of God."
The biblical authors invite us to see a life-and-death choice that humans have to make.
Will we live freely and forever in God's abundant world (represented by the garden of Eden) by joining his own way of ruling the world, according to his wisdom?
Or will we try to rule according to our own wisdom?
The humans trust their own perspective on how the world should work more than they trust God's wisdom.
They eat from the tree that God specifically told them to avoid, and they immediately experience fear.
They end up outside the good garden, suffering in a world of injury, loss, and death - a place where deadbolts and weapons make sense because life is dangerous and eventually returns to dust.
The biblical story tells us that humanity will be tempted to secure life in ways that might make sense from certain (limited) perspectives, but when those ways disregard God's instruction, humans always end up bringing harm to creation and one another.
Working to protect "me and mine" at any cost, even if it includes neglecting or harming others, has become normal, even "virtuous" in popular culture.
We've got our own problems to deal with, and doing what it takes to generously love each of our neighbours sounds nice but feels unrealistic.
So when we hear Jesus say,
"Seek first the Kingdom of God," it sounds idealistic and impractical if not impossible.
But Jesus resists the temptation to depend on violence of any kind to preserve himself.
He rejects every selfish way of gaining personal security, and he becomes the clearest example of what it looks like to live in this new way of life.
It would be easier to practice loving every neighbour with perfect love in a world where every neighbour loves you back the same way, but it's difficult (even deadly) to practice that way of life in a hostile world.
When danger still exists, fear can compel us more than love.
We conform to average patterns of life that value security above all else.
Possessions, income, and protections help us feel safe.
Often this means we feel entitled to what we have, leading us to compete with our neighbours for resources.
But to seek first the Kingdom of God means prioritizing love over survival - something Jesus embodies throughout his life and teaching, especially on the cross.
Lastly, to seek first the Kingdom of God is a way of daring to hope.
Jesus' appointed messengers speak of a day when we won't need to seek the Kingdom any longer because it will be fully here.
It will be a world where everyone deeply, truly loves everyone else.
There will be no injury or loss or death, no deadbolts, and no threats.
So we seek, love, and anticipate what is both arriving and already here.
We're almost home.
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Un-edited version, (MUCH MORE) available on request
(and Bible references)
BibleProject
is a non-profit animation studio that produces short-form, fully animated videos to make the biblical story accessible to everyone, everywhere.
We create videos, podcasts, and study guides that explore the Bible's unified story by focusing on its overarching themes and each book's literary design.
We are committed to understanding the Bible in its historical context and communicating its wisdom for the modern world.
Ultimately, we want to change how people read and use the Bible.
This article was written collaboratively by the BibleProject Scholar Team. Fellow Aaron Shaw led the initial research and writing, while scholar Dr. Ben Tertin provided editorial support.
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