Biblical 2

Running head: APA TYPING TEMPLATE Typing Template for APA Papers A. Sample Grand Canyon Jesus’ Kingdom Activity Jesus’ ministry lasted for more than a year and this paper will focus on three stories or events that will explain and help us understand His works and teachings, and how he used His ministry in bringing the Kingdom of God closer to the people. The Galilean Ministry was established around five themes: preaching the Kingdom of God, His call to discipleship, Jesus’ activities of healing and other miracles, the question of His Messiahship and the duality of His personhood, as the Son of Man and as the Son of God (Hayes).
Before He set on to teach thousands of people, He chose twelve men to accompany Him and to help Him teach the Word of God. They became what we know now as the Twelve Apostles. This started with the calling of Peter and Andrew (Matthew 4: 18-20). He told these two men and the ten after them that He’s going to teach them to become more than fishermen that catches fish in the sea. He taught these men how to become fishers of men inviting them to leave their families and the life that they know in order to help Jesus bring to the people the Kingdom of God. These Twelve Apostles were in parallelism with the Twelve Tribes of Israel of the Old Testament. His act of establishing the core of His Ministry showed He recognized His need of help. With them, Jesus started his Galilean Ministry, establishing the groundwork of working His way through preaching and healing people (Redford). With them, he made sure that His teachings will carry on even when He has gone from the earth. While gathering His Apostles, He was also gathering a public ministry which consisted of people who readily accepted His miracles and the doubtful who wanted to see more so they can believe in His works are the works of God and not of the Devil.
Jesus loved to teach using parables, using the lessons and hidden messages to interpret and characterize the Kingdom of God and how the people should act to receive the blessing of being accepted in the Kingdom of God. One of His most famous teachings happened during the Sermon on the Mount or what is called The Beatitudes (Matthew 5: 1-20, 38-48). The Beatitudes represented the standard of conduct of the people who would become the citizens of the Kingdom of God (Redford). It described how people should act in order to gain entry into the Kingdom and to maintain a life there. Jesus’ lessons described mainly how people should repent and act in order to cleanse themselves and be worthy of the Kingdom of God. His teachings, particularly the Beatitudes showed people that those who are considered as unblessed in their earthly life are considered blessed by God and so are worthy of entering the Kingdom of God. Jesus’ teachings revolved around repentance and faith (Hayes). His aim was to make people realize their need to turn to God to feel blessed and fulfilled, to feel contentment, happiness and love, feelings and emotions that may have been absent in their human life.
Aside from His teachings and lessons of repentance and love, Jesus also healed through the same line, through forgiveness, repentance and love. To cast doubt in Jesus’ Ministry, the Pharisees evoked people to look at His Teachings and miracles as the work of Satan. This particularly happened when the Pharisees challenged Him to exorcise a demon from a man to which Jesus told them of a lesson of the division of the house. If He was a cohort of Satan, why would he attempt to create internal conflict within Satan’s house just like how Satan divided himself from God. Jesus has always healed through repentance and faith of the people that He healed and that has always been the core of His Teachings, to repent and to have faith to be able to enter the Kingdom of God.
Jesus established His Ministry along the lines of forgiveness, repentance and faith. His works and teachings revolved around how the people can be worthy of entering the Kingdom of God.
References
Hayes, John Haralson. (1971). Introduction to the Bible. PA: Westminster John Knox Press.
Redford, Doug. (2007). The Life and Ministry of Jesus: the Gospels. Ohio: Standard Publishing.
(1984). Holy Bible, The New International Bible.