Part II. The Social Ideal Of Jesus
Chapter IV. The Kingdom Of God: Its Values
The Right Social Order is the Highest Good for All
The first three chapters dealt with simple human principles which are common and instinctive with all real men. Jesus simply expanded the range of their application, clarified our comprehension of them, placed them in the very center of religious duty, and so lifted them to the high level of great social and religious principles.
In the next three chapters we shall take up a conception which is not universally human, but which Jesus derived from the historic life of the Hebrew people—the idea of the “Kingdom of God.” A better translation would be “the Reign of God.” This conception embodied the social ideal and purpose of the best minds of one of the few creative nations of history.
How did Jesus interpret this inherited social ideal? What did the Kingdom of God seem to him to offer men? What did it demand of them? What immediate ethical duty did this social ideal involve? Our inquiry will move along these lines in the next three chapters.
Daily Readings