What are the characteristics of God's Kingdom?

Answer 1

The characteristics of God's kingdom is designed to entice the fantasies of gullible fanatics who are susceptible to the belief in such things as fairy land and Santa's North pole. The characteristics therefore are convenient concoctions designed to keep the fickle mind enslaved to socioeconomic marketing Propaganda.

AnswerMany think that 'God's kingdom' is simply a real place - heaven, or some such place. However Jesus made it quite clear what he meant when he said that the 'Kingdom of God is near'. Put very simply, it is God's way of doing things, not man's.

Christians are often counter-cultural. it means that they are astute enough to look at the world through Christ-coloured spectacles rather than look at the world through the blinkered eyes of one with no faith.

As an example, in the UK we have a National Lottery whose profits partly go towards charity. That sounds a sound, ethical idea and many play the lottery hoping to win several millions every week, and in doing so, help a charity.

That is the world's way of looking at things.

However God's way is very different.

The lottery is, in essence, a tax on the poor, as most who play the lottery are the very people who can least afford to do so, but the false hope of a way out of poverty usually wins over using the money for better purposes. These may include saving the money to feed their children, or to give to worthwhile causes and not causes determined by a lottery committee. Moreover, those who have actually won the lottery invariably realise that wealth does not equate to happiness. Also, the giving to charity should be the natural reponse to the love given to us by God; it should be done just because it is right and proper, and not simply for what we may get out of it. Many Christians even question the giving of money to the poorest in the world in the first place; better still to fight against the exploitation of the poor and to encourage developing world farmers to build up their busnesses by buying Fairtrade wherever they can.

So God's kingdom is simply looking at the world, and conducting one's life, in God's way, not in man's. Glimpses of this Kingdom are seen every day in a smile, in the maternity ward, even in the hospice. Christians believe that we glimpse God's kingdom 'in a glass darkly' while on Earth, and will know it fully in heaven.