Taught vs. Written
Each paper takes up one subject, named in its title, and begins where most people first met that subject: with the way it's commonly taught. That teaching is set out fairly, carefully enough that someone who holds it would recognize it as his own. Then the Scripture itself comes onto the page. Whole passages appear in context, with the surrounding argument left intact, and they're read through verse by verse.
The reading offered here is this site's own, and it takes its name from Jesus Himself, who called the message He was sowing "the word of the kingdom" (Matt. 13:19). The papers keep that name because the kingdom He announced, a specific, future reign in the heavens and on the earth, is the thread that runs through every one of them. It's laid out at length for one reason: so it can be tested against the text instead of taken on anyone's word. Where it parts company with what is commonly taught, the cause usually proves to be something small and close at hand once the two sit side by side. It might be one English word carrying the weight of three, promises made to Israel read as though they were addressed to the church, or a verse everyone quotes that turns out to have a second half.
The papers are numbered and build on one another, so reading them in order rewards the time it takes. Still, each one stands on its own, and anyone who came for a particular subject is welcome to start there. All are free to download, and all Scripture is quoted from the New King James Version.
4
Vocabulary of the Afterlife: Heaven and Hell
Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, the abyss, outer darkness, the lake of fire, and the second death are seven different things, and English collapses several of them into one word.
6
Israel and the Church: Two Peoples
Two peoples, two callings, and one word — mystery — marking off what was never revealed until Paul was given it.
8
Faith and Works: James , Paul and Rich Young Ruler
Paul and James both build on the same verse in Genesis, thirty years apart in Abraham's life, and neither one contradicts the other.
10
Eastern Orthodoxy: Theosis, Sin, and a Kingdom Now
The East took a different road on salvation, on what went wrong in Eden, and on the kingdom, and it is worth hearing in its own words.
12
Where the Roads Split
Groups that use the same vocabulary as the New Testament while meaning something else by it, and the exact point where each one turns off.
5
Aion and Aionios = Eternal
A noun that means a bounded age and an adjective built from it, both routinely translated as though they meant unending, with consequences the reader can trace.
7
The Mustard Tree and the Leaven
Two parables about growth that looked like success, and the institution that grew up in the branches.
9
Genealogy of a Doctrine: How the Kingdom Became Now
The present-kingdom reading has a datable origin, a line of men who carried it, and an institution that had reason to keep it.
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Answering the Critics
Every objection this teaching has drawn, stated at full strength in the critic's own terms, then answered.