the "surprising, infinitely delightful" kingdom...& its "quirky personalities"

If life itself is a kingdom,
then it would of course follow that one can glean lots about the
culture,
          DNA,
              secrets
                           and mission
of the ultimate Kingdom  
( βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ/Basilea tou Theou/Kingdom of God)...
from a study of how God embedded kingdomness in life.

SomeOne said all along that Kingdom is not far from us; even within us; even here, even now.

The same Jew claimed that the gospel IS, as He is, the Kingdom (Matthew 4:17).
A study of any kingdom would help  us become intentionally and increasingly incarnational
and, as Tom Fuller says, Kingdomed.

An amazing "secular" (there IS no secular, thank the Sacred!) book opens windows here.
What if:

The periodic table of the elements is the grand, unified theory of chemistry. In The Periodic Kingdom, P. W. Atkins imagines the table as a landscape, with fields of metals, pools of mercury and bromine, clouds of gases, and the offshore island of rare earths. He describes the history of this metaphoric kingdom and shows how its laws are those of physical chemistry: they are the expression in the visible world of the invisible dance of subatomic particles. The Periodic Kingdom is an excellent book for students at any level who want to see the connections between chemistry, physics, and "real life."Amazon.com, The Periodic Kingdom

What if:

"this kingdom is the one of which our own world is a manifestation"

 

As so often in the development of science, comprehension springs from simple

concepts that operate just below the surface of actuality, and constitute the true

actuality. Once atoms were known – and their constitution elucidated in terms

of that great invention of the mind, quantum mechanics – the foundation of the

kingdom was exposed. Simple principles – the enigmatic exclusion principle, in

particular – showed that the periodicity of the kingdom was a representation of the

periodicity of the electronic structure of atoms. The structure, layout, and probable

extensions of the kingdom are now fully understood. (Atkins, 1995, p. 148)

If chemistry at its core is a kingdom, then it will think, feel and act Kingdomly...in "real life." Indeed it does. And even though the Kingdom (of God) is not fundamentally about place, but grace; Atkins' "tour" and survey of the "geography" of the periodic kingdom is God-haunted.

This book reads as if it could be a contemporary book on emerging/organic/missional church. Whole sections apply without changing a single term. One need to stretch at all to grasp implications for the shaping of churchkklesia structures to best accomodate the Kingdom. For example:

"The Kingdom is established as...the recognition of family relationships, the formulation of
alliances (122)." Hmm, community and apostolic networks..

"From a hundred or so elements, millions of alliances can be constructed...though no one thought the 100 elements were related, they are formed of organic alliances" (137, 148).Ahh, the tipping point and emergent nature of church and wineskins.

There's even a whole chapter (nine)on proper and organic "regional administration" of the Kingdom.
Man, we need some work there!

And this gem you cam immediately "amen.":

"In the kingdom, invisibility does not mean uselessness." (11)
Now that will preach!

As will:
"There is a fundamental law of the kingdom that, in an echo of Noah, requires electrons to enter orbitals two by two." (116)


Finally, apply this:

"The structure, layout, and probable extensions of the Kingdom are now...understood...Yet despite our comprehension of the kingdom, it remains a mysterious place..
(Remember also) that it is a region of conflict. The properties of a region are the outcome of competition, of influences that pull in opposite directions, sometimes several influences. These influences are finely balanced, and it is difficult, even from the heights of experience, to be absolutely sure that an element will not have a particular quirk of personality that will defeat a prediction or open up a new and exciting avenue of investigation...
(There is) capacity for endless surprise and enchantment...the kingdom has sufficient infrastructure to make it an intellectually satisfying aggregation [note: see Andrew Jones here] of entities that are living personalities with quirks of character and not always evident dispositions, the kingdom will always be a land of infinite delight"(148-149).

!!

Suffice to say if you didn't recognize church and kingdom in the above paragraph, you have been skipping out.
If you don't know any "personalities" with "quirks of character and not always evident dispositions."....you have not yet met any Christians or Kingdom citizens.
And thank God the Kingdom is intrinsically "surprising and of infinite delight."
That is loaded; maybe even the must succinct definition of church/kingdom I have read.
It is everything we should have learned in seminary.

For further commentary, read the Bible....start anywhere.

Or jump to NextReformation.com... and start the reformation.

Any time.

Your Kingdom Come
Your will be done
On earth
As it already is
in the periodic table

and in heaven.

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