The phrase “kingdom of God” is both a political and religious metaphor in the first-century world. Religious: it is the kingdom of God. Political: the heirs of Jesus lived under other kingdoms. A “kingdom” was the most common form of political and social organization. People knew about the kingdom of Herod, they knew about the kingdom of Rome. Rome did not refer to itself as an empire, but as a kingdom. When people heard Jesus talking about the kingdom of God, they knew it must have been something different from the kingdom of Herod or the kingdom of Rome.
