{"id":4831,"date":"2013-12-13T00:05:39","date_gmt":"2013-12-13T08:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=4831"},"modified":"2013-12-12T22:00:34","modified_gmt":"2013-12-13T06:00:34","slug":"4831","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2013\/12\/13\/4831\/","title":{"rendered":"Sword Free Zone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\tWhile he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus asked him, \u201cJudas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?\u201d <\/p>\n

\tWhen Jesus\u2019 followers saw what was going to happen, they said, \u201cLord, should we strike with our swords?\u201d And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. <\/p>\n

\tBut Jesus answered, \u201cNo more of this!\u201d And he touched the man\u2019s ear and healed him. <\/p>\n

\tThen Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, \u201cAm I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour\u2014when darkness reigns.\u201d (Luke 22:47-53)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tThe Kingdom of Heaven is not like the Roman Empire. Or David\u2019s kingdom. Or Solomon\u2019s kingdom. When Jesus taught what the Kingdom of Heaven, or the Kingdom of God, was like, he never compared it to the Roman Empire or any other earthly government. <\/p>\n

\tBut his disciples, the crowds that followed him, and the religious establishment only thought in terms of earthly politics. They expected the Messiah to restore the Davidic monarchy, to overthrow the Roman hegemony, and to make Israel the most powerful kingdom on Earth. When the soldiers came to arrest Jesus, his followers assumed that the war of liberation had begun. Instead, Jesus ordered surrender. The one act of bloodshed, Jesus corrected. He healed the victim of his disciple\u2019s sword.<\/p>\n

\tThen he asked those who had come to arrest him if they really thought he was leading a rebellion. Of course they did. But he was telling them by the question and the words that followed, that they were mistaken.<\/p>\n

\tJesus was not about politics or government. The Talmud, an ancient Jewish commentary on the first five books of the Bible, states that saving a single soul saves a universe. Jesus was all about just that. He was about the Kingdom of Heaven, not the kingdom of man. And where was the Kingdom of Heaven being established? In the human heart. Change the heart, Jesus knew, and you changed the individual. And changed individuals can change the world more profoundly than any political restructuring or conquering army ever has.<\/p>\n

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While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus asked him, \u201cJudas, are you betraying the Son of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4831"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4831"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4834,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4831\/revisions\/4834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}