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| Joined: | Wed Nov 28th, 2007 |
| Location: | Michigan USA |
| Posts: | 208 |
| First Name: | Jane | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Presbyterian, Gnostic, non-denominational, Catholic |
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Posted: Wed May 21st, 2008 01:46 pm |
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I'm enough of Catholic now to expect a "both/and" answer to my question.
So how do we respond to someone who says "The church is not the kingdom. Jesus said: 'Nor will people say, "See here!" or "See there!" For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you' (Luke 17:21)?" (This is a quotation from a recent essay by Sunday Adelaja, a native Nigerian who is pastor of the largest Protestant church in Europe).
How do we correlate the kingdom of God within us and the city on the hill?
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David W. Emery
Network Helper
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Brownsville, Texas USA |
| Posts: | 2072 |
| First Name: | David | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Catholic |
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Posted: Wed May 21st, 2008 07:04 pm |
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Hi, Jane. Things can get a bit sticky when people start seeing contradictions in scripture.
In many versions of the bible, there is a note which gives an alternative translation. Instead of “the kingdom of God is within you,” it can also be read “the kingdom of God is among you.” This would make more sense in the context of understanding the kingdom as the Church.
Of course a Protestant would be expected to deny that the Church is the kingdom; this is part of the Protestant heritage. For if the Church is the kingdom, then Protestantism is wrong in rejecting ecclesial authority and breaking the unity of the Catholic Church.
Many Catholics, from the earliest times on, have understood the meaning “within” and related it to what takes place in the Christian soul (spiritual theology); but in other contexts the meaning “among” is also accepted, referring to the reality of the Church (ecclesiology). So you are right in saying that with Catholics it is both/and, while with Protestants it is either/or.
I think your reference to the city built on a hill is about as good an answer one can give where a Protestant is concerned. He is not likely to consider the both/and approach legitimate, so you have to offer extrinsic arguments instead.
David
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Dave Armstrong
Network Apologist
| Joined: | Fri Nov 2nd, 2007 |
| Location: | Melvindale, Michigan USA |
| Posts: | 1627 |
| First Name: | Dave | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Evangelical (1977): Diverse Protestant Influences / Catholic in 1990 |
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Posted: Wed May 21st, 2008 09:07 pm |
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The Catholic Encyclopedia has a good article ("Kingdom of God"). Note especially this section:
So, too, as men realized that this kingdom stood for a certain tone of mind, and saw that this peculiar spirit was enshrined in the Church, they began to speak of the Church as "the kingdom of God"; cf. Col., I, 13; I Thess., ii, 12; Apoc., I, 6, 9; v, 10, etc. The kingdom was regarded as Christ's and He presents it to the Father; cf. I Cor., xv, 23-28; II Tim., iv, 1. The kingdom of God means, then, the ruling of God in our hearts; it means those principles which separate us off from the kingdom of the world and the devil; it means the benign sway of grace; it means the Church as that Divine institution whereby we may make sure of attaining the spirit of Christ . . .
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