relationships and community from romans 14

It is always easier for us to want to purify other people, and attempt a moral reformation among our neighbors. (Yet) how much have I helped to make her what she is?

Almighty God our heavenly Father, guide the nations of the world into the way of justice and truth, and establish among them that peace which is the fruit of righteousness, that they may become the ki...

Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathe...

O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual...

There is no peace in Southern Africa. There is no peace because there is no justice. There can be no real peace and security until there be first justice enjoyed by all the inhabitants of that beautif...

In shalom, each person enjoys justice, enjoys his or her rights. There is no shalom without justice. But shalom goes beyond justice. Shalom is the human being dwelling at peace in all his or her relat...

During the 1992 presidential elections a friend of mine told me about an awkward moment in his Bible study. One of the group members expressed excitement because that Sunday, she had seen a bumper sti...

Continually, Jesus described the Kingdom in terms that one can’t point to and identify specifically—but in every story, the Kingdom was the essential piece. The Kingdom is mixed in and present already...

When I was considering the possibility of embracing Christian faith as a young college student, what I feared most was that it would make my life smaller rather than larger—less love, less joy, less c...

The phrase “kingdom of heaven,” which we find frequently in Matthew’s Gospel where the others have “kingdom of God,” does not refer to a place, called “heaven,” where God’s people will go after death....

Horace Gray was a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. During one of his cases, a criminal was about to be released, not because he was innocent, but because of a technicality. As Gray prepared to relea...

George Fox (1624-1691) was the founder of the Quakers, a Christian movement, in seventeenth-century century England. Two of the great Quaker contributions are their teaching on pacifism (refusal to u...

Even for those of us who follow Jesus on a daily basis, the reality is, our sinful nature has infiltrated our minds, and we often find ourselves, either consciously or unconsciously, judging those aro...

In the mid-1980s, I helped facilitate a series of conferences between top Soviet and American policy advisers on the question of how to prevent a nuclear war. The times were tense and the accusations ...

There are three ways to eat a salad: the American Way; the Weird Way, and the Right Way. The American Way of eating a salad is to fill your bowl with some iceberg lettuce or some spinach leaves, some ...

The kingdom of God is an alternative arrangement of human society around Jesus which leads to human flourishing.

How many prodigals are kept out of the kingdom of God by the unlovely characters of those who profess to be inside!

Kingdom is a signpost to the holy.

The seeking of the kingdom of God is the chief business of the Christian life.

The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God.

“To what shall I liken the kingdom of God?” Jesus asked. The kingdom is manifested in ordinary daily life and how we live it. Can we accept the God of everyday life? If we can, then we can enjoy the k...

Shalom envisions the full prosperity of a people of God living under the covenant of God’s demanding care and compassionate rule. In the prophetic vision, peace such as this comes hand in hand with ju...

Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone’s back.

Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.