A KINGDOM MANIFESTO by Howard Snyder

A KINGDOM MANIFESTO by Howard Snyder----sub-title calling the Church to live under God's reign

A quote from the preface to the book will serve to present the main purpose for it being written. "I'm afraid evangelicalism is infected by the most subtle form of worldliness. It's the worldliness of Hollywood and Madison Ave----we operate as if the only thing worth doing in the world is what we can measure by numbers and dollars. We are not Kingdom of God people." Then a paragraph later "Many people who have been converted to Jesus seemingly have never been converted to the Kingdom He proclaimed" In the preface on page 12 the author states "the theme of this book: The kingdom of God in Scripture and it's meaning for us today." He then goes on to quote E. Stanley Jones on page 13 "The kingdom of God is the master-conception, the master-plan, the master-purpose, the master-will that gathers everything up into itself and gives it redemption, coherence, purpose and goal."

The book is divided into two sections, ----Part 1 The Biblical Promise,--- seven chapters that give us God's promises pertaining to His Kingdom. They are 1/ The Peaceable Order, 2/ The Promised Land, 3/ The House of God, 4/ The City of The King, 5/ Justice for the Poor, 6/ The Age of Sabbath, 7/ The Age of Jubilee.---Part 2 The Present Challenge---four chapters that show us how to live in the Kingdom in our present age. They are 1/ The People of the Kingdom, 2/ The Possibility of the Kingdom, 3/ The Project of the Kingdom, 4/ The Principles of the Kingdom.

He finishes with a Select Bibliography, and several pages of Notes referring back to each chapter. I consider this book to be a Scholarly work, but written for the ordinary person in an easy to follow format. It is difficult to pick out any one chapter of this book that I found most challenging, but probably if I had to pick one it would be chapter 8. In this chapter on pages 81-84 he describes "The Kingdom Community" as what the Church that Jesus told us He would build, should look like.

In another book by this same author called "Community of the King" he describes the church as an "Agent of the Kingdom". Showing clearly that the church is not the Kingdom, but has a very important role to play in helping the world to understand what the Kingdom of God is all about!

Sincerely submitted

Dave Jamer