I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it. (Matthew 11:11-12)

The kingdom of heaven is biazo biastes harpazo.

Biazo: pressing, suffering, dragging, forcing its way. It is a verb that derives from the Greek for life or living.

Biastes: strength, force, violence. It is a noun form of biazo: a state of pressing, suffering, dragging or the person, place, or thing causing the action.

Plato uses biazo to describe how the body drags the soul into illusion:

"And were we not saying long ago that the soul when using the body as an instrument of perception, that is to say, when using the sense of sight or hearing or some other sense (for the meaning of perceiving through the body is perceiving through the senses)--were we not saying that the soul too is then dragged by the body into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard, when she touches change?" (Phaedo 81)

Harpazo: seize, carry off, catch, pluck, take, claim, redeems.

Three Greek words have been translated into nine English words. This does not suggest an easy or confident transfer of meaning.

Perhaps we can read the "reign of heaven redeems the marauder's violence."

Jesus emphasizes the present power of the kingdom of heaven, "until now" which the Greek suggests is just now, this very moment, and for this time onward.

There is in any case a sense of a very present authority taking charge of a disordered and violent context.

Above is Saint Matthew from the Lindisfarne Gospels.