Wherever God is, his kingdom – the final kingdom – draws near. He is the God of peace, whose presence brings freedom from all inner restlessness, all dividedness of heart, and every hostile impulse.… God wants to bestow an indestructible harmony upon our inner life: harmony that shows itself in mighty melodies of love. The energy born of inner gathering empowers. When hearts are gathered, people are gathered. Their industrious work shows that the kingdom of God is justice, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
- Eberhard Arnold
Selected Reading
Now Is the Time
Eberhard Arnold
Many of us long for a new society, a new awakening of humankind that serves God’s will and his kingdom. But too often we’re distracted by human solutions. In the current political climate, it’s clear that any hope we put in the government is sorely misplaced. So where then does our hope come from?
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The Courage of Love
Eberhard Arnold
How should the church relate to politics? Eighteen months after Hitler’s rise to power, Arnold spoke about this to members of his community, whose German branch had already been raided twice by Nazi forces. The question was no longer just theory...
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The Jesus of the Four Gospels
Eberhard Arnold
We live in an age where it seems Jesus has become almost unknown or his words distorted and disfigured, his work weakened. All the more, we must rediscover this Jesus and hold him up before all the world. We must place the Jesus of the four Gospels in the center of our faith and our life.
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The Danger of Prayer
Eberhard Arnold
What is the true meaning of prayer, and how can it have power to transform our lives? In this devotion, Eberhard Arnold describes the kind of prayer that pleases God, and he challenges us to rediscover the prayer that can change our lives and our world.
The Spirit of the Early Church
Eberhard Arnold
The early church was not perfect, nor can it be blindly imitated, admits Eberhard Arnold in this groundbreaking 1926 essay. And yet, never since in church history has the Spirit been so forcefully at work. Why has the example of the first Christians never ceased to fuel renewal and reform?
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The Kingdom Breaking In
Eberhard Arnold
Can we grasp that something even greater than the early apostolic times must come, namely the kingdom of God, which will change the whole world? Throughout his life, Eberhard Arnold eagerly anticipated the coming kingdom. This excerpt from the book God’s Revolution catalogues some of his key thoughts.
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God’s Revolution
Eberhard Arnold
Eberhard Arnold’s reflections on vital issues such as capitalism, war, suffering, disease, poverty, community, property, military service, and sustainable farming, among others, are as relevant today as they were 100 years ago. Excerpted from the book God’s Revolution.
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God wants to reveal himself in order to establish his kingdom over all worlds, including the world of this earth. He wants to reveal it as a kingdom of peace in operation, a kingdom of active work, of brotherliness, of the justice that goes with complete unity and penetrates right into material things. We expect this kingdom as a kingdom of the future of God. It does not grow from earthly foundations. Rather, it comes like the sunrise from the east. It takes hold of the earth completely and universally.
- Eberhard Arnold
Where the Kingdom of God, the rule of Christ, is being proclaimed, things start happening. That is why John the Baptist was challenged: Why are you asking? Look at what is happening, listen to what is being said, and accept it. This is what is happening here: The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised. (Matt. 11:5)
- Eberhard Arnold
Jesus is saying that if only you could believe what is actually happening, Christ would be revealed to you, and your questions about God’s Kingdom would be answered. That is what faith means.