Upon occasion Think-Biblically.com receives comments from its readers. Most are of a positive nature and warm our heart by indicating how meaningful a particular article has been or that text from a blog has been used at a wedding or funeral service. These are always welcome and we would encourage you to send in those stories. We do not publish these messages as they are usually of a personal nature and the author rarely grants us permission to do so in the text itself. There are, of course, some that are critical and those with merit we address privately.

Then there are questions we receive from readers. These two are very much welcome and help us to create fresh content that many people will enjoy. Today we have one such example. Again, the reader has not expressly granted us permission to use their name and town so we will forgo any identification, but the question is so thought provoking we decided to address it: Why does Matthew refer to God’s kingdom as the kingdom of heaven when all the other New Testament writers prefer the term Kingdom of God? Kudos to you-know-who-you-are for reading your Bible so carefully!

Most Christians use the terms to refer to the same kingdom because rarely is this topic addressed from the pulpit. In truth, they are not synonymous and refer to two distinct kingdoms. While there are parallels between the two, to be sure, there are also distinctions and it is here that we can determine which is which. There are a number of proof texts for this and unfortunately we don’t have the space here to address them all, but we will reference the important ones that differentiate between the two. Before we do so, however, an illustration may be helpful.

It will be easier to understand the differences by referring to the diagram above. Note that the Kingdom of God has a narrower focus than the Kingdom of Heaven. Some who belong to the kingdom of God are also members of the Kingdom of Heaven, but there are many that belong to the Kingdom of Heaven that do not belong to the Kingdom of God. There are also some beings that belong to the kingdom of God but not the Kingdom of Heaven. Now, let’s look at some proof texts for these assertions.

For the sake of time we won’t exposit the passage here but I encourage you read all the passages we quote as proof texts to be sure of what we are teaching. Matthew 22.1-14 is the parable of a wedding feast. The passage indicates that the Kingdom of Heaven contains those who are believer’s and those who profess to believe but are not saved. By contrast, Mark 4.26-29 and John 3.3-5 show that the Kingdom of God consists only of those who are truly born again and elect angels.

This really is only the tip of the iceberg, but these passages alone are enough to conclude that the two kingdoms, while the do have some overlap, are different. We’ll examine what difference this makes in our theology next week. For now, if you want a full and detailed treatment of this topic you can do no better than to read John Walvoord’s excellent article in the Theological Journal Library entitled “The Kingdom of Heaven”.