The phrases have the same meaning however Matthew clearly preferred the phrase “Kingdom of Heaven” to “Kingdom of God”. (The phrase “Kingdom of Heaven” appears 32 times in the New Testament and is used only by Matthew. The phrase “Kingdom of God” appears 66 times but is used by Matthew only 4 of those times.) The reason for this may be that Matthew wrote for the Hebrews. The Catholic Encyclopedia explains, “All through the Psalter… it is constantly insisted that God’s throne is in heaven and that there is His kingdom; this may explain St. Matthew’s preference for the expression “kingdom of heaven”, as being more familiar to the Hebrews for whom he wrote”.
