The kingdom of God is the imperative that drives the Church’s evangelistic preaching and its virtues, and compels us to reorder our lives according to the symbols and story of Jesus as the crucified, risen, and exalted king. But a caveat is needed lest we naively equate our own efforts directly with the kingdom of God itself. That is why, as we have already said (echoing Paul in Colossians 4:11), we have spoken not of ‘building the kingdom’ but of building for the kingdom.
