What can we learn from John’s radical vocabulary shift from “kingdom” to “life”? The shift (away from the more political metaphor of kingdom) involved some adaptation to his audience and setting.304 I believe we can emulate this. Consider the following anecdote. Several years ago, at the annual general assembly of a rather conservative American Presbyterian denomination, the assembly invited a representative non-Christian to address the floor. The non-Christian told the assembly, “If you want outsiders to listen to your message, you need to stop saying kingdom every time you open your mouths.
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