This one's for serious students of theology. Something that one is bound to come across in theological writing today, sooner or later, is a distinction between the kingdom of God on the one hand, and the reign of God on the other. What’s the difference? Putting it too simply, the kingdom of God tends to correlate with premillennialism, while the reign of God tends to correlate with postmillennialism. These views tend to be typical of evangelicalism on the one hand (the old definition), and postliberalism on the other. Another way of putting it, again too simply, is that the kingdom of God tends to be a place that saved souls enter, while the reign of God tends to be a people who are moving towards shalom. The "reign of God" diagram is typical, and is taken from
Missional Church, 1998. You may click on it to enlarge.
4 comments:
I had never heard of that distinction before. As I pointed out recently on my blog at Notes from underground: Glocal Christianity: Rapture Ready? Questioning the Celestial Panic Room, both Premillenialism and Postmillennialism are heresies and to us amillennialists there is little difference between "kingdom" and "reign".
It's a well known distinction, if not for amillennialists. As an example, Hunsberger, professor of missiology at WTS, justifies it as follows: kingdom is "too static, political, and archaic", while reign is "dynamic". Kingdom tends to consider "salvation as a private event". Reign "envisions a world characterized by peace, justice, and celebration. Shalom." I can't do justice here to all that Hunsberger says. He writes in Missional Church (1998), edited by Guder, dean of PTS. The Greek term for "reign" would be for example kuriotes, while the NT uses basileia, "kingdom", and so one finds various justifications for the use of the term "reign".
Hmmm, I doubt that one can find a single word correlation. I'm no Greek fundi, but as I understand it, Basileia can be translated as kingdom, kingship, reign or sovereignty. My daughter (who does speak Greek, and is studying theology in Greece) has told me that "reign" is usually a better translation, except in contexts where it would not make sense in English - eg a reign divided against itself cannot stand.
Well now, look what your post was at least partly responsible for inspiring: Notes from underground: The Kingdom of God -- synchroblog
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