"Kingdom Summary"

Jesus came to tell us about the kingdom of God. Many Jews rejected him because they had another idea about the kingdom of God. For example Jesus preached that the people that loved their enemies belonged to the kingdom of God. The Jews believe that you should love your friends and hate your enemies. It is a miracle that some people believed in Jesus because his ideas were so new and different.

           
Before Jesus Christ was born, many people were waiting for the Messiah. They believed the

Messiah would be their king on this earth. He would fight against the Romans who were making the

Jews suffer. There was a group called the Zealots. They hated the Romans, were ready to fight, and

they were waiting for the Messiah to be their leader.  They were so upset when Jesus, the long

awaited Messiah, did not want to fight.

           

Jesus talked about the kingdom as, not of the earth. For Jesus, the real enemy of the Jews was the

devil not the Romans. The important thing for him was for everyone to have eternal life with him in

heaven. The only way to beat the devil was for Jesus to die on the cross. The Jews did not understand

this.

Jesus also taught that the Kingdom of God was a Kingdom of love. He said we should

love our neighbors. For Jesus, our neighbors were everyone. For the Jews, their neighbors were only

those who were like them. But Jesus said even our enemies were our neighbors, and that we should

love them too. This was so strange for the Jews.