Extracts from an Article by Ron McGatlin OpenHeaven.com Digest Nov’07
One wonderful man of God who began to hear the gospel of the kingdom in the 1980s, said he had trouble with the word “kingdom.” He asked God for another word to replace kingdom and heard the word, “government.” A kingdom is a government ruled by a sovereign. Perhaps it will help us to think of the kingdom of God as “the government of God.”
Jesus spoke of the kingdom (”basileia”) over 100 times in the Gospels. Most of Jesus’ teachings were aimed at explaining the kingdom (government) of God, how it works, and how to enter it. The thread or general theme of the kingdom of God runs through all the teachings of Jesus and much of the rest of the Bible. Romans 14-17: … for the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The word translated “kingdom” in the New Testament is the Greek word “basileia” which comes from the root word “basis” and means “foundation of power, realm, rule, or royalty.” “Basis” means to walk, to pace, or foot in Greek. “King” means “ruler or sovereign.” “Dom” is the root from which we get words like “dominion, dominant, domain, and dome.” The kingdom of God is a realm or walk. It is a lifestyle, sovereignly ruled by the basic foundational power of God through which God’s dominion is established on earth. The kingdom walk or lifestyle is produced by the appearing or manifesting of Christ Jesus through the Holy Spirit within God’s people.