Didn't Jesus say that the kingdom of God is only "within us"?
Here is the scripture which provokes this question:
21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.Luke 17:21KJV
Many English translations (mostly older ones derived from the KJV) render the Greek phrase ἐντὸς ὑμῶν as "within you" (e.g. KJV, NKJV, WEB, YLT, ASV). However, the Greek word ὑμῶν ("you") is plural and the phrase should be translated as "among you" or "in your midst." It is correctly translated in NIV, ESV, NASB, HCSB, NET, and others.
The meaning of this phrase is either that Jesus himself and his disciples were teaching and bringing the work of the kingdom ("may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven") already right in their (the Pharisees) midst, or even that some of the Pharisees had already become believers in Jesus as the Messiah (see Acts 15:5, John 12:42).
Jesus was clear in his teaching about the kingdom of God: that it would start small, and grow large. It starts as a small mustard seed, and grows into a large tree (Matt 13:31-32). It starts as a tiny bit of leaven (Matt 13:33), and grows to fill all the meal.
The commentator John Gill writes, on this verse:
and the meaning be, that the king Messiah was already come, and was among them, and his kingdom was already set up, of which the miracles of Christ were a full proof; and if they could not discern these signs of the times, and evident appearances of the kingdom of God among them, they would never be able to make any observation of it, hereafter, or elsewhere.
