Accordingly, a difference in terminology that at first seems insignificant in fact reaches deeply into the heart of Jesus’ message about this world we live in. The phrase kingdom of the heavens occurs thirty-two times in Matthew’s Gospel and never again in the New Testament. By contrast, the phrase kingdom of God occurs only five times in that Gospel but is the usual term used in the remainder of the New Testament. What is the significance of this variation in terminology? Generally speaking, scholars have treated the variation as of no significance at all. This is unfortunate, for reasons
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