Kingdom Principles
Kingdom Principles
So what’s the difference between a king and a lord? Lordship is only one aspect of a king’s overall identity and status, but it is one of the most important ones. One way to put it is to say that king relates to dominion , while lord relates to domain . The word dominion refers to a king’s authority—his power; the word domain refers to the ter ritory, the property, the geographical area over which his authority extends. A king exercises authority (dominion) over a specific geo graphical area (domain) and within that area his authority is absolute. Without a domain there is no king. A king is a king only so far as he has something to rule over. What good does it do to have author ity if you have nowhere to exercise it? In that case, you really don’t have authority. The most you have is potential authority. Until you have a physical domain over which to rule, your so-called “authori ty” is little more than theory. If the word lord relates to a king’s domain, then the lordship of a king is tied up in his territory. To put it another way, if kingship has to do with authority, then lordship has to do with ownership . Let me explain. If a king must have a domain in order to be a king, then all true kings must have and own territory . This is what we call the kingdom lordship principle. You cannot be a king unless you own property. It is not the same simply to exercise rule and authority over a geographical region. Presidents do that. Prime ministers do that. Governors do that. But presidents, prime ministers, and gover nors do not own the territory over which they rule, and therein lies the difference. Kings personally own the physical domain over which they reign, and that is what makes them not only kings but also lords. So king and property go together. And the word lord defines the king’s identity as “owner” of his domain. As lord, a king literally and legally owns everything in his domain: the forests and the meadows, the mountains and the val leys, the rivers and the streams, the crops and the livestock, even the people and the houses they live in. Everything in a king’s domain belongs to him . Because of this, a king has absolute and
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