John, the baptizer, preaches for repentance [a complete mind change and turning from a previous path of madness, cf. "Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible", in re: Mat. 3:2] because the kingdom of heaven has come near -- a perfect tense construction in Greek indicating completed action, thus the translations say "is at hand" -- you can touch it so to speak.
Jesus takes up the exact same preaching in Matthew 4:17 and speaks of the kingdom at length in the Sermon on the Mount [Matthew 5, 6, & 7]. In Matthew 6, He gives us His prayer. In it He says that we should pray for the establishment of the kingdom of heaven by the doing of God's will here on earth as it is already done in heaven. When God's will is what is done on earth, only then will the kingdom of heaven be fully established so that God can live with His people and [essentially] merge heaven and earth as in Revelation 21 and 22.
Is the doing of God's will -- by all -- the good news Jesus preached or is there something more? Is that the good news that the apostles preached in their travels?
More thoughts soon ...
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