[Steve Myers] In the book of Matthew we find the phrase the Kingdom of Heaven used over and over and over again. In fact, in our BT Daily just recently we talked about this, how Matthew was exclusively the one to use that phrase, the Kingdom of Heaven. And what we talked about the other day was that Matthew 5:3 and Luke 6:20 show that the term Kingdom of Heaven is synonymous with the Kingdom of God that they are one in the same.

In fact, there's so many examples throughout the Bible that show that these terms mean exactly the same thing. I thought another example might be helpful for you. Over in Matthew, if you look at chapter 3 and when you look at when Christ first began His ministry in verse 2 Christ comes on the scene and Matthew records that Christ says, "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand" (Matthew 3:2). Now if you flipped over to the book of Mark and you look at Mark 1:15 we find Christ saying the Kingdom of God is at hand. And so these two terms are synonymous. They're the same. They mean exactly the same thing. But it does bring up another question. Why?

Why would Matthew record this as the Kingdom of Heaven and Mark or Luke record it as the Kingdom of God? It certainly is an interesting question. Why the difference between those two things?

Well, probably the most important aspect of this is who they were writing to. Who was Matthew intending his gospel to be written to? Who was going to read it? Who were the ones that were going to be confronted with what he was writing here? Well, the answer is the Jews.

Matthew was writing to the Jews and that is a very, very important part of the whole scenario. Writing to the Jews, he was taking into account the sensitivities that they had. Now, one of the sensitivities of course is the fact that they did not address God directly. They were very sensitive about the name of God. And so rather than use the Kingdom of God, which could be offensive to many of them and automatically turn them off to the message of the gospel, what Matthew would do then, he would use that as little as possible.  And so he referred to it as the Kingdom of Heaven. And by referring to it in that way there wasn't an offense to them. Their guard was not up then and be turned off by the fact that he used that particular phrase. And so using the direct name of God was not acceptable, you know, in general in Judaism. And so Matthew used this term in order to reach that particular audience and so that they would have ears that would be opened to the truth of the gospel.

In fact, there's an interesting quote that's from the New Bible Dictionary. Here's what the New Bible Dictionary says, it says, "The use of the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew is certainly due to the tendency in Judaism to avoid the direct use of the name of God." It goes on to say, "In any case, no distinction in sense is to be assumed between the two expressions." [See Bible FAQ: What is the Kingdom of Heaven?]

In other words, once again we see the Kingdom of God does equal the Kingdom of Heaven.

That's BT Daily. We'll see you next time.