We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

The All-or-Nothing of Kingdom Living
Nothing is more central to the kingdom of God than agreeing with God about every person’s unsurpassable worth and reflecting this in how we act toward them. Nothing is more important that living in Christlike love for all people at all times. In fact, compared to love, nothing else really matters in the kingdom.
In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul says that all the most impressive religious and humanitarian activity in the world is completely worthless, except insofar as it expresses love. Let’s explore these.
A person may speak in tongues—even the glorious tongues of angels—but if his speaking isn’t motivated by love, it’s just religious noise.
A person may have the gift of prophecy and be able to proclaim the word of God in ways that dazzle audiences and build incredible mega churches. But if the use of these gifts isn’t motivated by love, they are, from a kingdom perspective, utterly worthless.
It doesn’t make a least bit of difference that a person has breathtaking insight into all mysteries or that they posses all knowledge. This would undoubtedly impress crowds and maybe even get them on the cover of your favorite Christian magazine, but if they aren’t motivated by a desire to ascribe unsurpassable worth to all people at all times, it’s meaningless.
Nor does it matter that a person has faith such that they can command mountains to be relocated and the mountains actually obey. This sort of miracle-working ability would certainly land them a nice spot on Christian television and would undoubtedly make them an excellent fund-raiser. But, according to Paul, it’s complete devoid of value unless it’s fueled by an agreement with God that every person alive is worth God himself dying for.
Finally, and perhaps most surprising, even if a person gives every single thing they own to the poor and endures great hardships in the course of their ministry, if there actions aren’t motivated by a love that looks like Jesus dying on the cross, it accomplishes absolutely nothing.
Let me go so far as to say this: If this is true about love—if the kingdom is nothing without it—then it seems to me we should regard the command to love to be the ultimate test of orthodoxy. To fail to love like Jesus is the worst form of heresy, regardless of how true one’s beliefs are. Demons believe true things, James tells us, but their true beliefs are worthless because they are not accompanied with works that reflect God’s love.
Love is the all-or-nothing of kingdom living. The “only thing that counts,” Paul says, is faith expressing itself through love.” We are to “do everything in love,” he says. Love is the primary expression of the kingdom life. Where God truly reigns in an individual or community, they will look like Jesus, sacrificially ascribing unsurpassable worth to all people, no ifs, ands, or buts.
—Adapted from The Myth of a Christian Religion, pages 51-52, 60-61
Photo via VisualHunt.com
Category: General
Tags: Kingdom Living, Love
Verse: 1 Corinthians 13
Related Reading

How should Christians respond to Near Death Experiences?
In a recent Q and A session about the book of Revelation, Greg Boyd and Paul Eddy answer a question on How Christians should respond to claims of Near Death Experiences. You can view the entire Q and A HERE.

Quotes to Chew On: Desires
Marcos de Madariaga via Compfight Here’s a quote that comes to us via Andrew Sullivan’s blog: “We are rarely presented with an authentically fulfilling trajectory for our desires… If we are created for infinite satisfaction, we really only have three choices about what to do with our desire in this life: We will become either…

Cheap Grace and Consumer Christianity
The “cheap grace” Gospel sells well in America. We live in a culture of consumerism that conditions us to habitually look for “the best deal.” We’re more or less trained from birth to live in the question; “How can we get the most for the least?” We think this way about our houses, cars, clothes,…

Sermon Clip: Dear Abby
In this short sermon clip, Greg Boyd discusses Matthew 7. The infamous “plank in your own eye vs a speck of dust in your neighbors. He clarifies what this verse means when you have a close friend with an issue that you are helping them with. In the full sermon of Heart Smart our team…

Q&A: Already-Not-Yet
Question: My question is regarding our “entanglement” with Christ that you spoke about a few weeks ago. In the sermon you noted how we are joined with Christ like those two particles that can be separated by light years of distance and yet both will react equally to a force acting on the other one. So here is my question: If…

Living Jesus’ Prayer for Forgiveness
Luke 23:34: Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Could anything be more shocking and yet more beautiful than this prayer? After being whipped, beaten, crowned with thorns, repeatedly mocked, spit upon, sneered at, and pierced with spikes through his wrists and ankles, while slowly suffocating as he…