But this whole storyline of this, this theme of the Kingdom of God brings entirely, I think, richer

and deeper meaning to when Jesus says the kingdom is at hand. He's not saying, hi I, I'm the King.

here to teach you new laws. He's saying, Yahweh has come back to save you. Yahweh has come back to

finally give you soft hearts that will obey from the heart.

Well, Paul Lamicela, welcome back to Anabaptist Perspectives podcast. And there's a topic that

hit from a number of angles. In the past, it's been a minute since we talked about it, and

I'm curious to get your angle on this as well. And that's the whole phrase, the Kingdom of God, which

is an Anabaptist thing that's talked about, you know, quite a bit and and so forth. And from what I

understand, you've done a little bit of work on this and have some stuff to share. So I'm going to

leave it there pretty general and and see what you have. And then we'll kind of go from there. So

in the I Of course I teach on the biblical storyline, a two week intensive. We spend a chunk

of time tracing the theme of the Kingdom of God through the Bible. So there's a lot that could be

said, but I want to just maybe just hit a couple of a couple of highlights. So as you, as you

mentioned, Kingdom of God or just kingdom has become something of a buzz phrase, uh, in, in some

of our circles. And as with all buzz phrases, um, there's always a chance that that that we,

we can use the phrase without really thinking, always thinking super deeply about, like, where

does this originate? Like, what is the what is the Bible mean? What does Jesus mean when he says the

kingdom of God is at hand or whatever? Where does it come from? Like where does it come from? Did he

just make that up? Or I mean, that sounded bad. Like, of course he didn't make it up, but it was like

the first time we ever see it? Or is it centered at somewhere else? Right. All that. And I think

sometimes we have when we when we hear Jesus used the phrase Kingdom of God, we've sort

of taken that phrase sort of in a vacuum and said, okay, so what does this mean? Well, let's see what

is a kingdom? Um, okay. Kingdom has a king, and a kingdom has subjects, and it has

laws and maybe a realm. And so that's what a kingdom usually has. So let's fill in the blanks.

Well, Jesus or God is the king. The subjects are the Christians and the laws are maybe the sermon

on the Mount or something. And the realm is, I don't know, people's hearts or the church or

whatever. And some of those, I mean, none of those things are false, but but that phrase in a

vacuum, uh, with us filling in, what is it? What is a kingdom that when we think of a kingdom,

um, completely misses the, uh, what Jesus is trying to evoke when he says the kingdom of God is at

hand because, as you maybe hint it, hinting at Jesus is not making this phrase up. See? And it's

not okay. But see, that's as important because it is very easy to be like, you read that chunk and

you're like, oh, first time we see it, right? This is this is a new thing Jesus is kind of bringing up

for the first time ever. And and to be honest, I think there's more to the context, but I don't

know. It is huge. Yeah. Yeah. Incredibly huge. So yeah. What what is some of the, um, Biblical context? The

historical context. I'm not sure what all. Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm a. You know, a Biblical scholar. So

that's where I'm going to go. Um, I think the risk is that we can truncate what we think kingdom of

God means and limit it to things like the sermon on the Mount or whatever. When reality, the the, the

theme of the Kingdom of God is something that is so big and includes so much more of the Bible

story. Um, and it really is one angle, um, on all much of

what, what creation and redemption is supposed to be about. And then if we get that lens from the

Old Testament, uh, that's going to help us to really understand and to see so much more of the

New Testament in light of what Jesus is trying to say when he says, the kingdom of God is at hand, or

to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God. So it's far from being an abstract

thing where Jesus is saying, I am the king and I'm giving you laws and you're the subjects. Jesus is

is tapping into this Old Testament vision that starts in Genesis one, but especially he's drawing

from the prophets. So the theme of the kingdom really starts on in the first page of the Bible,,

where God creates Adam and Eve in his image so that they can have dominion over, over

the earth. That's a really good point. Okay. So it's I mean, well, there's one, uh, if anyone's

interested, there's a fantastic book by Jeremy Treat called, um, Kingdom. Sorry, uh, The

Crucified King, and it traces the theme of kingdom and atonement shows how they intersect in the

biblical storyline. But he says he he talks about God's goal and creation is, um, God, God's reign

through his servant kings over creation write what the kingdom of God meant there was. God had

created this beautiful world, and his and He's in a sense the ruler of it. But he's, um. Humans are his

sub. His vice regents called to mediate his rule in his presence to the rest of creation. Um, and

then, of course, they they decide. No, we want to be our. We want to be the High Kings. We don't want to

be Sub Kings. We want to, you know, we want to decide good and evil for ourselves, you know, and

they get thrown out. Um, and so much of the rest of the story in the Old Testament is of God, um,

seeking to establish to to bring back that. Right. Um, and so God calls

Abraham, um, and, and eventually the people of Israel, whom God calls a kingdom of

priests. Right? They're supposed to be a devoted nation, a kingdom of priests. There's there's this

whole nation is supposed to take on, in a sense, the role that Adam and Eve and all humanity is

supposed to have but fails, right? that this role of mediating God's presence as priestly people, a

priestly nation, right, having special access to God, and then, um, you know, spreading

that to the world. So that's that's what the kingdom of God starts being. It's not an

abstraction. It's it's this relationship that God enters into with Abraham and then with Israel to,

um, re to sort of start the process of bringing Eden back, right, of bringing of God and humanity

dwelling together and God blessing this people who will rule sort of under him type of thing.

Right? Um, but then when you really reach the high point of this in the Old Testament is with David,

because David is promise, he's he's not just like Saul. He was a king. And then he got rejected. David

is somehow promised this unending line. Yeah. In second Samuel seven. And

so his reign is always going to. It has this like incredible Significance

that somehow, um, David becomes this figure and his line becomes

his. This line that is so closely intertwined with God's kingdom. There's a couple. Of passages in

Chronicles, for example, that speak of how David and David's descendants sort of sit on the throne

of the kingdom of God. Right. And so, as one scholar Scott Hahn says, from this point on, the kingdom of

God is the kingdom of David. And from from this point on, God's kingdom is inseparable from the

Davidic throne. Right. So all of the, you know, from from here on through the prophets, the

hope of God's kingdom is simultaneously the hope that God would send the ultimate descendant of

David to rule. Right? And again, not an abstraction. It's this very real, um,

story, right, that was working itself out in Israel and is is so tied to God's presence in the Temple

in Jerusalem and any number of other things. right? Um, but, um, God's kingdom gets tied

to the fulfillment of his promises to David. David is this and his ultimate descendant is going to

be the one that mediates his presence and kind of is is

inseparable from the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is the kingdom that is going to be ruled

over by the Messiah, right? It's that it's that thing. But then so I think so when we come to the

story of Solomon in in the Old Testament, we are so used to the we know the ending of the story

like Solomon crashes and burns. That's kind of what he's known for, right? So he, you know, he like,

threatens to cut a baby in half. And that that is a very clever thing that shows his

wisdom. And then after that, uh, he maybe writes some proverbs, and then he goes, goes haywire. Right??

Um, but I think we've gotten so used to this story, um, that we, I think if we would read it,

um, like, pretend we don't know the ending. Um. Solomon is spoken of in

incredibly, incredibly pretty exalted ways in terms of his reign

marks the zenith of God's kingdom in the Old Testament. You have like he's renowned for his

wisdom, like the world over. Um, his Jerusalem and Israel prospers. There's

peace, and the nations are streaming in to pay tribute and to hear the wisdom that God has, you

know, brought to this, this guy. And it sort of culminates in the story of the Queen of Sheba who

shows up with all these, all these gifts, gold and, and, you know, frankincense and all this kind of

stuff and, uh, and is just blown away by Solomon's wisdom and, like, that's the story wants you to

think, man, this guy just might be the Messiah, right? Like, he's this this descendent of

David. And this is what God's kingdom on earth looks like. Whoa! I've never thought of that

before. Yeah. And then. Okay. And then he crashes and burns. Right. It's like you take it, you go as high

as you can. You're like, wow, this is getting close to what we mean by God's kingdom coming on earth.

Uh, getting closest to back to Eden. We can. And the closest to the nations coming in and realizing

Israel's got all this stuff, and then he just plummets, you know? Wow. And then. And of course,

immediately after the kingdoms gets fractured and all this, just. All this crazy stuff happens, right?

And eventually, um, they end up in exile. Israel ends up. I mean, Judah, the I mean, the kingdom

fractures, but then the northern kingdom gets taken away by Syria. But then the southern kingdom,

which is the one, the kingdom that stayed with the Davidic line. Uh, they get carted off to Babylon

and the kingship is over. Yeah. And that is where, um, you start this. This

is where the language of that is that Jesus draws from. uh, this is where this picks up.

So the idea of the kingdom of God or the their coming of this

Davidic figure, um, picks up massively. So what the what say Isaiah

speaks of is, um, God returning to his people. His idea is in the

exile. Uh, Israel was Israel was removed from God's presence. Um, God left

in Ezekiel. He had this vision of God leaving the temple. Um, yeah. Israel gets carted off. Just. I mean,

it's it's just like what happened to Adam and Eve in the garden, right? They get booted out of the

garden. They get booted out of God's presence. So. So thinking like there's that threat of exile

coming back, pointing us back to Eden. And what happened there? Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, very

much so. Yeah. Okay. And then honestly, I, I hadn't thought about it quite like. Yeah. And I mean

that's not original to, to me of course, but um, the expectation the hope is that God would come back

someday to his people. And and what would God do when he came back? He would redeem them, restore

them, rule over them. And very much tied to that is the that age is the coming of this new David. Um,

Ezekiel 34 is this incredible passage about where, uh, God tells Ezekiel

to prophesy against the evil shepherds, the bad leaders of the people. Okay. Um, because the these

shepherds, these leaders of Israel have been instead of feeding the sheep, they've been

barbecuing them as lamb chops and stuff. Right. Basically, this is what it's pretty much what it

says. And so God says I, he says, I will I will seek the lost. I will

bind up the strayed, I will bring them back. And then he. So God is going to come back and do this

and be the good shepherd. And then he says, and I'm going to send my servant David to rule over them.

And you're like, huh? What's the connection? Who's who's actually coming back? Is God returning or is

David or is it are they somehow tied together is the coming. The return of God to bring back his

lost sheep. Hmm. The same as this David coming. This new David figure. What's the what's the

relationship? It sets up, of course, for the incarnation. Yeah, but that is part of this hope of

the prophets that this that the kingdom of God, that God's God would come back to restore his

people and to renew all things, to forgive them and to to, you know, change them. The new Covenant

is is part of this where God would finally change the hearts of his wayward people so that they

would love him forever and obey him. And then that brings us to Isaiah. So there's a there's

three passages, but I can just look at 1 or 2 because they say pretty much the same things that

the specific language of the good news. So we the term gospel in all in, you know,

Christianity, especially Protestant Christianity, uh, and, and our circles to, um, has kind of

become just this default word that we use, right? Um, but it's rooted in, of course, what the New

Testament, the language of that the New Testament uses, which is good news, right? The good news and

Jesus. I mean, Paul talks about the good news that he's not ashamed of the good news. And and he he's

all about he tells people you must not proclaim a different gospel, a different good news. It's this

Greek word euaggelion that means good news. And, um, Jesus in the Gospels goes around

proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. And you say, oh, that's interesting. Where does this

come from? Like you said at the beginning, and it comes it comes straight out of Isaiah. There's

these three passages in Isaiah that use this word good news. So okay, Isaiah was written in

Hebrew, but it's uh, then translated into Greek. In the Greek translation Septuagint it uses

this, this word euaggelion or or the or the verb equivalent. Um, and Jesus of course, is probably

Aramaic, but in the gospel as we've received it, and Matthew's Gospel or whatever. It's

the Greek word euaggelion and it matches what we see in Isaiah. Jesus is clearly drawing on this

idea. And what is this? So it's very much tied to this whole theme of, um,

God's God's answer to the problem of Israel's failure. Right?

Israel's been in exile. They've lost God's presence. And the hope is that God would someday

come back. Right. So Isaiah 40, where you know this famous comfort my people says, God,

speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Cry to her that her warfare is ended, uh, her iniquity is pardoned, etc.

so a time of mercy is coming. Isaiah is looking forward to this in the future. And a voice

cries out in the wilderness, prepare the way of Yahweh. Make straight in the desert a highway for

our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low, the uneven ground

shall become level, etc. so this is language we're really used to hearing in the New Testament

because John, uh, sort of thinks of himself as this guy, right? He's like that voice

that's preparing the way for Yahweh to return, uh, is him, which which is really fascinating because

then who ends up showing up? Yeah, it's Jesus, right. And the text is implicitly telling us that's

Yahweh, right? Yeah. So and then the next verse is verse nine, go up to a high mountain,

Zion, O Zion, heralds of good news. There's that language, good news. So it's picturing, it's like,

hey, you, you know these news reporters, the ancient news reporters, like, go up, uh, go up so you can

shout out this good news. Um. Lift up your voice with strength. Jerusalem Herald of good news. Lift

it up. Fear not. And what is the good news that they're supposed to proclaim? Behold your God. God

is coming back. Yahweh comes with might. His arm rules for him. His reward is with him. He will his

recompense before him. And he will tend his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his

arms and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. So good. The good news

is that Yahweh is coming back to bless, to rule over, but to restore his people.

Right? And it's it's that this is where this is where all subsequent Christian good news language

in the New Testament comes from. It's this vision. It's not again, it's not an abstraction. It's not,

oh, hey, here's a king, here's laws, here's subjects. No, it's God is going to end Israel's

exile. And by restoring coming back to his people, forgiving them, changing their hearts, bringing

in the Gentiles. That's a big part of this vision of what would happen when God comes back to his

people, bringing in the Gentiles and eventually bringing about a new heavens and the earth, like

all of that. For Isaiah is tied to this era when God would to this good news that God is coming

back to reign over his people again after, you know. So really what we're what we're looking at

when we say things like Kingdom of God for one thing that that phraseology is not in a vacuum.

You know this, this is a thread that we're following. You're really tracing the messianic

story in a lot of ways, right? Like the this expectation of the Messiah essentially coming

or. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah, it's very tied to that. But but especially if we're thinking of like this

good news because Jesus comes proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. Right. If we say,

where exactly does that come from? That brings us back to Isaiah saying this whole the story that

started it's kind of started with In the Garden of Eden, but then really started with, you know,

Israel and David and everything else being this kingdom of priests and crashed in exile. They were

supposed to be this group of people that came closest to restoring Eden failed big time.

And, uh, this the good news is that after exile, God is not done and God is going to come back. His

presence is going to be with his people, and he's going to change their hearts, restore them. So it's

this whole era when we say Kingdom of God, when, when, when a Jewish person would say, Kingdom of

God, where Jesus says, good news, the kingdom of God is here. What everyone here heard is the vision

of Isaiah is about to come true. Which again is God coming back to his people. God coming back to

his people to do all the things that Isaiah and Ezekiel said and Jeremiah said were going to

happen, which means forgiveness of sins transformed hearts bringing in of the Gentiles.

Um, and eventually, you know, judgment and new creation as well. Whoa. That is that is really

interesting. Okay. This is making a lot more sense because I always kind of wonder, like when Jesus

comes and says that he never defines what he's talking about, is. It doesn't need to. Yeah. Right. And

I'm seeing why. Yeah. Because it's like, oh yeah. It's like. Isaiah. Yeah. And so many others are

waiting for this day as well. Right. Some violently, you know, zealots are trying to push for it. Maybe

in the Qumran community, the Dead Sea Scrolls, people are going out to a desert to wait for the

kingdom of God, because they actually thought that they were the people crying out in the wilderness

to make way for the people to, oh, that that role that John the Baptist believed he had. Yeah, they

thought they were in that position. Right. So people are waiting for God to come back to his

people to to bring about this age of fulfillment, the age of restoration. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.

Just there's one more passage from Isaiah. Isaiah 52. Uh, so this comes right before the Suffering

Servant passage, right? And, uh, and this is all tied to new Exodus language. But here, how

beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the one who brings good news, who publishes peace, who

brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation. So what is this good news? The this

gospel. Who says to Zion, Your God reigns? But it's not just this abstract. God reigns

as your king, but it's God is coming back to reign over you because this is it's this good news. So

the next verse, the voice of your watchman, they lift up their voice. So they're they're looking

out metaphorically. And then they, they start getting all excited together. They sing for joy,

for eye to eye. They see the return of Yahweh to Zion. And they see God is coming back to reign

over us again and to to dwell with us. And then the next thing that happens in Isaiah is this

servant is mysteriously suffers for the people and seems to come back to life. And then all sorts

of good things, all sorts of good things come out of that. Right? So that is where the good news of

God coming back to reign. But to restore, to bring about this whole vision of restoration, uh,

it's all rooted directly in it. Like when Jesus said, the kingdom of God is at hand. You

know, he's saying the vision of Isaiah is here. Like the days of waiting. Waiting are

over. God is returning to forgive your. Forgive your sins. To forgive sins.

Change hearts. Renew. Renew his people. Bring in the Gentiles. And eventually, you know. Culminate

in all things judged and renewed. This is essentially one of one of the big threads

throughout Scripture. Yeah, really huge, right? I mean. Yeah, and this is why I say we we can't

truncate it. So even when we get to the New Testament, it doesn't start in Matthew five or

even it doesn't start in when Jesus announces the good news of the kingdom. It starts in Matthew one

where we read that Jesus is, uh. Matthew announces Jesus as the Son of Abraham,

right? Uh, the son of David. Right. And when you read that the son of David we were supposed to

say is, the new David is here, right? Which means this era of God coming back, restoring his

people through this new ultimate seed of David has arrived. right? The Kingdom of God

is here. And so this is where I think, um, this this tapestry of the Old

Testament, this rooted in Isaiah. But Isaiah is just looking back, right, and saying, this is what

God has done so far. This is what we've lost, and this is what we're waiting for God to do. But this

whole storyline of this, this theme of the kingdom of God brings entirely, I think, richer and deeper

meaning to when Jesus says the kingdom is at hand, he's not saying, yeah, "Hi, I'm the King. I'm here to

teach you new laws." He's saying, Yahweh has come back to save you. Yahweh has come back to finally

you soft hearts that will obey from the heart. Yahweh has come back to make, uh, to to bring

in the the Gentiles. Right. Yahweh has come back to, to renew all things right, and to judge and to

judge your enemies. So it's not like he's announcing something brand new. It's like he's

actually deeply rooting himself into these past statements through the prophets and so forth. But

he's what's new is that he's saying, I mean, just it's the same thing when Jesus stands up in the

synagogue in Luke four and he reads, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. And he says, today this is

happening. The Scripture is fulfilled, right? Yeah. Which is wild. Yeah, right. And it's like it's

completely over the top. Unless it's true. Right? Yeah. It's. Yeah. C.S. Lewis says either he's a

total, like, lunatic, you know, or it's true or it's true. Like, yeah. And that's what's happening here.

Jesus is is saying. Mhm. It's happening that what the, what Isaiah said God would

do. I'm, I'm here as the embodiment of Israel's God but also as the descendant of David to bring it

about. Right. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense because it got back to that whole it's not in a

vacuum or it's not. Again, it's not like Jesus says, oh, like, here's a new thing that that I'm

announcing for the very first time. It's like, oh no, no, no. Like we're talking about something

that's already been talked about, talked about and prophesied. It just hasn't happened. But here it.

Comes. Here it comes. Yes, exactly. Um. And then if. If that's what? The king. How the kingdom of what the

kingdom of God means. That means that so much more of the New Testament, so much more of the Gospels

is about the kingdom of God. Yeah. So I spend time when we talk about the kingdom in my class, we

spend time talking about how Jesus healings in the Gospel of Matthew are are very, very

much part of the the Kingdom of God material. And it's not like what that's not what we tend to

think of, but part of this vision, like in, in Ezekiel, for example, uh, is that or,

or um, Isaiah is that this day when God would come and restore his people as this day when the eyes

of the blind would be open and the ears of the deaf unstopped and things like that. So when Jesus

goes around healing in Matthew, there's this one passage where people see him healing, and then

they say, could this be the Son of David? And it's like, they're like, they're right there realizing,

wait a minute, this type of thing is happening. This is this is what we expect from from the son

of David, who's bringing in, you know, who is connected to this age of the kingdom of God. Age

of fulfillment. So all of this, the parables of the kingdom and Matthew 13 are all about how

Jesus, uh, Jesus is trying to teach his disciples that whole vision of Isaiah. It started,

but it's actually going to come in two stages, right? There's it's not it's not going to be new

creation and final Judgment yet. That's going to be in the future. And so he's got to tell these

parables about, um, how the kingdom of God seems very small now, but eventually it will be big.

Right. To try to to try to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right about the vision of Isaiah. But it's

going to there's going to be, there's a sense in which it's here now, but it's here in a small,

often kind of overlooked form. But it's going to eventually get there. Right. All of these things in

the Gospels start making so much sense. And then in light of that, the sermon on the Mount is one

component of that where I think what's going on in the sermon on the Mount is Jesus

announcing so part of the vision of this age to come, this age of the kingdom of God, this age when

God comes back to restore his people? Um, is from Jeremiah. Jeremiah speaks of this new covenant

where God would write his Torah on the hearts of the people. And and I think the sermon on the

Mount is Jesus saying, kind of announcing, what a heart, uh, what a,

uh, a Torah written on the heart would look like. Right. It's not just here's some laws. I'm the king

Kingdom of God is here. Go obey them.It's. It's part of this larger vision of the kingdom of God, the

age of restoration. Um, what would a a heart that has the Torah written on it

look like? And that's why Jesus spends so much time saying, um, yeah. It used to be that

divorce, you know- Moses allowed it for the hardness of your heart, right? But Jeremiah

says that that this new kingdom of God age is one where God would make your heart

soft. So any provisions from the law that are there because of the hardness of your heart not

going to be there anymore. So therefore divorce. You know, divorce is out. Right. Things like that.

The sermon on the Mount is a part of this large vision of God restoring his people. And a big part

of that is God, um, uh, changing his people's hearts so that full so that people who are

only only those who have their heart transformed by Jesus atoning death, right, um, will be able to,

um, live out what it means to have that Torah on the heart. Right? It's part of that larger package,

if that makes sense. Mhm. But that makes sense because it's pretty easy to look at something

like the sermon on the Mount and be like, oh okay. This is, this is a again, look at it in a vacuum.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. That's very easy that it is. You know, and you're basically admonishing or

encouraging us to Don't necessarily do that. Like look at it in the broader context of the rest of

Scripture, because that's. If the kingdom of God is this big vision that God is coming back to

restore, redeem, and transform his people and eventually all of creation. Um, Matthew

starts out with this Jesus who's the Son of David, who's God? Immanuel, God with us. What's he going to

do? He's going to save his people from their sins, right? How is he going to do that? Well, the end of

Matthew's gospel makes it pretty clear. He sheds his blood for the forgiveness of sins that

bookends the gospel. And then inside it is is all about all these different signs of what it means

that this era of the kingdom of God is here. Healings is one of those signs. It's this little

burst of the kingdom of God coming into the present, like this burst of healing or whatever. Um

Jesus. But Jesus's sermon on the Mount. Is him teaching. Hey, those only those. You know, this is.

This is what it looks like to live inside this new age of God restoring his people to

live. As. As someone who's part of this new age is. Is to be someone who has a greater righteousness

than the scribes and Pharisees, because it's the righteousness of someone who has the Torah

written on the heart, and not just somebody who has it external to them. Right? It's this. Yeah,

but that and that itself is this gift that God will give as part of this new covenant age. Right?

So it's it's I think we could go to Paul. We could go to revelation, the whole rest of the New

Testament, um, and say that what they're all doing is, is the same, the same thing. They're looking and

saying, wow, what happened is that in in Jesus coming is that God has returned to his people to

save, to bring in the Gentiles, to make us people who can and must obey from

the heart, right? And who promises to come and restore all things in the future? How does this

work out? Right. That's what the whole rest of the investment is about. It's all about the good news

of the age of fulfillment, right? From this, from Isaiah and the prophet's perspective. That that

whole thread of the good news. Yeah. From the perspective of Isaiah. Right. Um, that that's a

that's a key piece, it seems to me. Yeah. Wow. That is, that's quite the quite the

theme really like this. And like. We skip so much. But those are some those are just

some highlights to help us I think to say when we hear the phrase good news of the Kingdom of God,

we should be thinking back to Isaiah and then all the way back to Garden of Eden. Really. Yeah. Really.?

Yeah. Whoa! And forward to revelation. Where, um, where we read that, you know, Jesus will reign on

the earth with his kingdom, with his renewed kingdom of priests. Right. Yeah, yeah. Wow. That's

that's a wow. That was a lot, you know, and and I think, um, hopefully this will encourage people to

not, like you were saying, look at the kingdom of God in a vacuum, but as something a much greater

scope. And and maybe go back to the scriptures with a renewed, uh, you know, like looking a little

deeper. Yeah. Through this and. Wow. Yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot to take in. That's a lot to think

about right there. Um, so. Well, thanks for taking the time to share this. I think this is going to

give people a lot to think about. And, uh, hopefully is a is an encouragement as they dig into some of

this themselves. So yeah, thanks for sharing today Paul. Yeah, thanks.

Thanks for listening to this episode with Paul Lamicela on the Kingdom of God. If you enjoyed this episode, you might enjoy

the conversation we had with Paul on the storyline of Scripture and the theme of exile,

which you can find linked in the description below. Of course, you can find all our content on

our website at anabaptistperspectives.org as well as links to all our different platforms and for our

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