Quote: The Kingdom and The World (John 18:33-38)

"Some might read the popular phrase ‘My kingdom is not of this world,’ and mistakenly think that Jesus meant, ‘My kingdom is not in this world.’ But Jesus was talking more about essence than location. In other words, he was talking about the ‘real world.’

"Jesus said this while on trial for insurrection. His kingdom had finally collided with the kingdoms of Herod and Pilate…Jesus had, for the most part, stayed on the fringes of public life, insisting that the kingdom he preached and represented be undetectable to the powers. But now he had paraded into the center of power, flipped over its tables, and hosted a public and critical teach-in, creating the conditions for his arrest.

"Jesus didn’t mean that his kingdom has no interaction with or claims to make about the world. Jesus even insisted that his whole life was a thrusting of truth into the world, affronting it. Nor did Jesus mean that his goal was to get people ready to die and go to heaven—as if the earth were just a waiting room for the afterlife. The people who were working for Jesus’ execution understood that his identity wasn’t just an abstract theological heresy…His claims had political import…the titles of King, Messiah, and Son of God (all used in the Gospels’ accounts of Jesus’ trials) were claims competing against the emperor in Rome.

"When Jesus said, 'My kingdom is not of this world,’ he wasn’t saying that his kingdom is apolitical; rather he was saying how his kingdom is political. He clarified his statement right after he made it: the essential difference is that in my kingdom, we do not fight to maintain the kingdom."

-- Shane Claiborne, "Jesus for President,” pp. 109-10 ("he," "his," "him" [sic] throughout)