The kingdom of God is blaringly absent as the overarching theme of evangelical preaching. Preaching textbooks, preaching classes, and, worse yet, evangelical pulpits scarcely mention Scripture’s primary subject matter, the kingdom of God fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Theology classes usually teach kingdom doctrine, but preaching classes rarely discuss it.
Preaching textbooks are notorious for leaving out the kingdom of God’s relationship to homiletics. Only one book has been published on preaching the kingdom of God in the last 50 years (and it was not from an evangelical point of view)!1 The kingdom of God’s most comprehensive treatment in a preaching book by an evangelical author totals a whomping fifteen pages, and it was written 18 years ago!2 The time has come to recover the kingdom of God’s importance in evangelical preaching.
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The kingdom of God is the Bible’s principal theme and is the focus of Jesus Christ’s ministry. In recent years, biblical theology has recaptured the kingdom of God as the common thread running through the Old and New Testaments. Throughout Scripture, God is progressively revealing to human kind the nature and reality of His kingdom. In the Old Testament, God built a people who were to live under his rule, and He promises to establish David’s kingdom forever (2 Sam. 7:16).
In the gospels of the New Testament, the kingdom of God was the dominant focus of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus taught that the kingdom of God had come in and through Him. Jesus’ first public proclamation was “Repent, for the kingdom of God is near,” (Matt. 4.19). Throughout His public ministry, Jesus demonstrates how He is the Messiah, the “anointed ruler” who was to come and rescue His people and to sit on David’s throne forever.
At the cross, King Jesus atoned for the sins of His people. Through His resurrection, Jesus demonstrated His power over death and the beauty and wonder of a life alive before God. The remainder of the New Testament reveals how the church exists as a present day sign of the kingdom and how God’s kingdom will be completely established at the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Almost any biblical or theological survey affirms that the kingdom of God is the Bible’s most centrally important idea, but many preachers do not proclaim it as their primary focus or dominant theme. Of course, many would claim to preach the kingdom of God, but how many really do? Some will think that they preach the kingdom just because they call for decisions for Christ and strive to preach biblical messages. However, an enormous canyon exists between how one thinks he preaches the kingdom and how he actually does.
