Chapter # 14 Paragraph # 2 Study # 7
June 20, 2021
Humble, Texas
(Download Audio)

⁽¹²⁵⁾

Thesis:   The essence of The Kingdom of The God is NOT the "eating" and "drinking" which sustains the physical life of the body.

Introduction:   In our last study we looked into Paul's insistence that believers cease exercising their freedoms in Christ from dietary rules and observances of memorial days when that exercise is a violation of "Love" so that the exercise becomes a basis for others to "blaspheme" the "good" of the freedom. In that study we briefly considered the chiastic pattern of Paul's words in 14:14-20 so that we could see that sacrificing one's freedoms for the sake of others whose grasp of The Faith is diseased is the "final step" that brings us to the major "point" of the chiasm. In other words, it is the loving sacrifice of a significant privilege for the sake of a fellow believer that ushers us into the realization of the true essence of The Kingdom of The God.

Now, this evening we are going to begin a consideration of Paul's focus upon this "true essence of The Kingdom of The God".

• I. There Is A Declaration Of What The Kingdom Of The God Is Not, And There Is A Declaration Of What The Kingdom Of The God Is.
• II. This Study Will Focus Upon What The Essence Of The Kingdom Of The God Is Not.
  • A. For Paul's purpose in turning believers away from a loveless exaltation of a true "freedom", he employs the very common analogy of "food" and "drink".
    • 1. The nouns used are "food" and "drink".
    • 2. But there are strong overtones of verbal meaning in those two nouns so that some translations use the English gerunds "eating" and "drinking" to render the translators' understanding of Paul's meaning.
  • B. For Paul to use these common elements, turned into activities, he fell back upon an already established parallelism between the two creation realities (physical and relational) wherein there exists a "physical food/drink aspect of physical creation" as well as a "relational food/drink aspect of relational creation".
    • 1. Jesus established this parallelism in John 4, where He dealt with the woman of Samaria who had gone out from the town to obtain water from Jacob's well.
      • a. That record begins with the disciples leaving Jesus at the well outside of town to go into the town in order to buy "food for the body of physical creation status".
      • b. At the end of that record we read of Jesus telling those disciples that He had a "food" of which they were ignorant (4:32), and when they quizzed Him about that He said that his "food" was "to do the will of Him Who had sent Him" (a decidedly "relational" issue because the relationship between Him and The One Who sent Him rested upon His "doing His will"; i.e., "eating the food" of relational harmony).
      • c. Then, later in John's record (6:27) we read of Jesus telling His disciples to "not work for the food which perishes" but to "work for the food which endures to eternal life" (which "Life" is defined in decidedly "relational" terms in John 17:3).
      • d. Then we read in 6:55 of John's record that Jesus made a clear distinction between what He called "true food" (which He identified as His "flesh") and "true drink" (which He identified as His "blood").
    • 2. The author of Hebrews rests part of his "doctrine" upon this parallelism in his dealings with his readers.
      • a. First, in Hebrews 5:12-14 he criticizes his readers for their failure to turn into "teachers" of "doctrine" because they fixated upon only "drinking milk" and refused to progress to "eating solid food".
        • 1) In this analogy, "drinking milk" is the original hybrid of "eating/drinking" in that "milk" is both the "food" and the "drink".
        • 2) Also in this analogy, "eating solid food" is a progression into "moral maturity".
      • b. Second, in Hebrews 10:29 he warns against "trampling under foot the Son of God" and "regarding as unclean the blood of the covenant".
        • 1) When we bring Jesus' analogy into these concepts, we have people "trampling the true food under foot" and "regarding as unclean the true drink".
        • 2) This boils down to a total disregard for the entire reality of the "relational creation".
      • c. And, third, in Hebrews 12:16 he warns his readers to not be like Esau whose rejection of the relational in favor of the physical was illustrated by his exaltation of a single instance of "eating" over his "birthright".
        • 1) This is a kind of climax of the analogy of food/true food and drink/true drink and an intensification of Jesus' insistence that we put "relational food and drink" far above "physical food and drink" in the things we value.
        • 2) An extremely clear illustration of this principle is seen in the temptation of Jesus when He was confronted by the extreme tension involved in being tempted to turn stones into bread.
          • a) If He had succumbed, He would have been guilty of exalting the physical over the relational, just as did Adam.
          • b) At issue is the extremity of putting the death of the physical into the position of being "trampled under foot" and the life of the relational into the position of eating and drinking true food unto eternal life.
  • C. Thus we see that Paul used the already established analogy to make sure that his readers were able to recognize what The Kingdom of The God was NOT.
    • 1. The Kingdom of The God is NOT characterized by the subversion of true values.
    • 2. In the text, this subversion involves insisting upon exercising one's freedoms at the expense of the relational health of a "diseased brother".

(return to the top of the article)


This is article #126.
If you wish, you may contact Darrel as darrelcline at this site.