Quotes from Gregory Boyd

Jesus came to establish the kingdom of God as a radical alternative to all versions of the kingdom of the world, whether they declare themselves to be "under God" or not.

It takes a greater God to steer a world populated with free agents than it does to steer a world of preprogrammed automatons.

Jesus completely abolishes all ordinary ideas and expectations people have of a Supreme Being.

The question that wins the world is not, how can we get our "morally superior" way enforced in the world? The question that wins the world, and the question that must define the individual and collective life of kingdom-of-God citizens is, how do we take up the cross for the world? How do we best communicate to others their unsurpassable worth before God? How do we serve and wash the feet of the oppressed and despised?

With reckless abandon, therefore, we are to manifest God's unconditional love by ascribing unsurpassable worth to all people at all times in all conditions.

It's my conviction that we are made to perpetually share in a life in which we are perfectly and unconditionally loved, in which we experientially know we could not matter more to God than we already do, and in which we feel absolutely secure in this love and worth, for we know that nothing—including the loss of our biological life—could cause us to lose this life.

When we live as though we were lords of our own life, capable of meeting our own needs, we are living in the flesh. When we treat people, possessions, or achievements as though they were the source of our worth and significance rather than God, we are living in the flesh. In fact, insofar as we live as though God were not present, moment-by-moment, and as though this wasn't the most important aspect of any present moment, we are living in the flesh.

The church is to be set apart (sanctified) not by possessing a special religious piety but by participating in and manifesting the perfect eternal love of God. As Bonhoeffer said, "Jesus calls men, not to a new religion, but to life.

Jesus never allowed himself to be defined by the political conflicts of his day, and neither should we.

The reason God now calls kingdom people to remain separate from the ways of the kingdom-of-the-world is not to isolate them from their culture but to empower them to authentically serve their culture and ultimately win it over to allegiance to Jesus Christ. The reason we are not to be of the world is so we may be for the world.

It is the most fundamental reason why each of us exists. Scripture calls it "abiding in Christ" (John 15:4; cf. 1 John 4:16). God's desire is for us to participate in his own eternal love and life and therefore in his own eternal joy and peace by dwelling in the Son.

The core problem seems to lie in the classical-philosophical equation of power with control, and thus omnipotence with omnicontrol, an equation that forces the problem of evil to be seen as a problem of God's sovereignty. If it is accepted that God is all-loving and all-powerful, and if maximum power is defined as maximum control, then by definition there seems to be no place for evil. If goodness controls all things, all things must me good.