Two sets of two words
Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom.  He formally announced its arrival, and he spends His ministry years from beginning to end defining its nature.

On the other hand, Jesus claimed the Church as His own.  He made it clear that it was His people and that He was absolutely in charge of it from top to bottom, but his action toward the Church was different than his engagement with the coming of the Kingdom.

These two words:  claiming and proclaiming have very distinct meanings and I am using them to promote a simple truth by their relationship to these two very different words:  Church and Kingdom.  Let’s spend some time on this together so we can get a better grip on the claiming of the Church and the proclaiming of the Kingdom.  I think if we can see the beauty and the differences in these two distinct ideas that it will help us mature in a million ways.

First, I would like to jump to the present, and look into how we treat the Church and the Kingdom in our journey with Jesus. (more…)