A Counterfeit Kingdom

But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28, ESV)

In 1889 the Scottish scholar A. B. Bruce published a book concerning the kingdom of God. It is not a book that I can unreservedly recommend. But the following comments certainly drive home the same point that Jesus was making in Matthew 20.

"A kingdom of God so conceived of as to give rise to ambitious passions is not such in reality, but a kingdom of this world. The utmost devotion to such a counterfeit does not amount to compliance with the demand, 'Seek first the kingdom.'.... The kingdom of God is a kingdom of love from which selfishness in every form is excluded;.... Hence it follows that there may be much religious activity, making a great display of zeal and gaining golden opinions, which has no relation to the kingdom of God, except it be one of antagonism, .... The struggle for religious name and church place and power may be more respectable than the struggle for physical livelihood, but it is not less, but rather more, ungodly" (A. B. Bruce, The Kingdom of God, p. 92).

Let us seek God’s kingdom first and foremost in our lives (Mt 6:33). But let us be sure that the kingdom we are seeking is indeed the kingdom of God, and not some mythical kingdom of our own imagination.