Quoteworthy: Kingdom of Heaven or Kingdom of God?

Jesus often used euphemisms for God — his audiences would have been shocked had he not.  The most common world for God used by Jesus was "Heaven."  This occurs often throughout the Gospel of Matthew in the phrase "Kingdom of Heaven," the term Jesus used for his community of disciples.

Mark and Luke used "Kingdom of God," possibly because most of their Greek readers might not have understood the euphemism.  The original, however, is malchut shamayim (Kingdom of Heaven), which is common in the Hebrew literature of the period while "Kingdom of God" is never used.

David Bivin.  2007.  New Light on the Difficult Words of Jesus.  Holland MI: En-Gedi Resource Center, Inc.