Euangelion
Patrick Schreiner
The Kingdom of God and the Glory of the Cross
Short Studies in Biblical Theology; eds. Dane Ortlunc and Miles van Pelt
Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018.
Available at Amazon.com
This is a short yet informative book on the kingdom of God in the biblical story. Schreiner (son of St. Tom “the Exegete” Schreiner) covers how the kingdom is related to each biblical sub-corpus:
The Law: Reviving Hope in the Kingdom
The Prophets: Foreshadowing Hope in the Kingdom
The Writings: Life in the Kingdom
The Gospels: Embodying the Kingdom
Acts and Epistles: Kingdom Community
Revelation: Achieving the Kingdom Goal
It was refreshing to see an American finally take an interest in Graeme Goldsworthy’s approach to the kingdom of God, hence Schreiner’s own Goldsworthy-esque definition: “The kingdom is the King’s power over the King’s people in the King’s place” (p. 18). (I prefer to say: potentate, people, and place). In places Schreiner sounds even Wrightonian: “The reason Abraham is so important is that, like Adam, he is a kingly figure and the instrument through which God will establish his kingdom upon the earth. God’s desire is to bring harmony to all things. What Adam disrupted, Abraham’s family will mend” (p. 36). Elsewhere he sums up the biblical storyline this way: “One of Abraham’s children, from the line of Judah, the seed of David, will grow up out of the stump and will lead them to the place beside still waters. God’s plan is to make a place, through a future King, so that his people might dwell with him again” (p. 82).
This is a good read, only 160 pp, great resource to use to teach people what the kingdom of God is and what it is in the biblical story.
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