“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” – Mark 1:15

When God highlighted this verse to me last February, I repeated it over and over for two hours, putting the emphasis on a different word each time, trying to repent (think differently) and actually believe this good news.

• The time has come…
• The time has come…
• The time has come…
• etc.

One of the things that was hampering me, is that I didn’t know what changed. More specifically, if the kingdom came with Jesus, what was going on before? I’ve been stewing on it ever since.

Two months ago, at the end of a long phone call with a friend in the Netherlands, he felt prompted to tell me something like, “The nations were allotted to different principalities at the Tower of Babel. That’s all I’ve got for you. Bye!” Our conversation ended abruptly, but the implications are still consuming me.

Was someone else in charge before Jesus announced the kingdom was at hand? That would make the kingdom news he came to proclaim actual news. But who was it?

Two weeks ago, I returned from a trip to Thailand, which was really great. But what was even better was the 30 hour commute each way. After 6 weeks of research I had a chance in airports and on airplanes to read through the entire New Testament, highlighting every verse that had to do with authority before or after Jesus.

I learned a ton as I processed the results. My gospel a few months ago was for sure about the King, and included his coming kingdom, but didn’t have much to say about the kingdom news that Jesus announced everywhere he went.

I started blogging to get my thoughts out. My thinking is still a little disjointed but I’m looking forward to being able to summarize once this brain dump is complete.

My goal has been to write something every day. Some days, I learn too much to write. Other days, the research doesn’t lead to anything. Recent duds:

• 30 hours studying archaeology and myths from pre-history, and checking them against the Bible and the Book of Enoch. No solid conclusion.
• I read every encounter with Jesus in the New Testament to find a pattern of why he told some people not to tell anyone. I thought I had it: the people or demons who wanted to make it about Jesus saving instead of the kingdom of God were silenced. But, in the end the theory fell apart.
• Reading through the early church fathers to see if they see the kingdom news the same way I do. At first glance, lots of similarities, and I’m half way through writing a compelling blog. But as I read more, not just the quotes that agree with me, the parallels got a lot fuzzier. Delete. Delete. Delete.

But the more I look into it, the more things I discover that changed dramatically through Jesus. More to come….

Thanks for joining me as we together seek first his kingdom!