He Must Reign: The Kingdom of God in Scripture

The drama in the Gospels turns on a single question: Is Jesus the long awaited Messiah, the son of David come to restore the everlasting monarchy promised to David? Underlying this drama are centuries of rival interpretations of the Jewish Scriptures and competing expectations of who the Messiah was to be, the signs that would accompany his coming, and the shape of the kingdom he would establish.

All these issues are explored in this thematic survey course, which goes to the heart of what the New Testament has to say about the identity of Christ and the Church.

The course starts with a detailed look at the importance of David in the Old Testament, the shape of the Davidic monarchy, and its historic rise and fall. Next, it examines the messianic hopes of Israel and the traditions of exile and restoration found in the Old Testament and in Jewish literature written between the Old and New Testaments.

A detailed study then follows of how Jesus is portrayed as the Davidic Messiah in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, as well as in Luke’s second volume, the Acts of the Apostles. The study is rounded out by exploring the Davidic-kingdom imagery in the remaining New Testament texts, and how the biblical understanding of the Church as the kingdom is reflected in the Catholic Church.