«To speak of God's Kingdom,» says Wright, «is thus to invoke God as the sovereign one who has the right, the duty, and the power to deal appropriately with evil in the world, in Israel, and in human beings, and thereupon to remake the world, Israel, and human beings... When full allowance is made for the striking differences of genre and emphasis within scripture, we may propose that Israel's
sacred writings were the
place where, and the means by which, Israel discovered again and again who the
true God was, and how his Kingdom - purposes were being taken forward... Through scripture, God was equipping his people to serve his purposes.»
One thing the church must not do, however, is treat buildings like holy
sacred places where the
true, spiritual stuff happens and everywhere else is secular and unspiritual.