by Terry Wane Benton<\/p>\n
“For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit<\/em>” (Romans 14:17).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The kingdom should feature an emphasis on righteousness. Living by righteous standards is what the kingdom is about. Dietary laws of the Old Testament had illustration value in foreshadowing things to come but were not matters of righteousness — matters of moral right versus moral wrong. So, the emphasis should be on righteousness as seen in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) rather than falling out with one another over issues of food or drink.<\/p>\n
The kingdom is about peace with God and with each other, so don’t let matters of liberty become so important to us that we lose that peace among ourselves. Is that what the Prince of Peace wants in His church?<\/p>\n
The kingdom of God is about joy and rejoicing in the Lord always. Why jeopardize that feeling of goodwill and feeling of contentment by getting sidetracked into petty issues?<\/p>\n
Let the kingdom of God be what it is intended to be: righteousness, peace, and joy. Fight for obtaining and maintaining these things as Jesus died for us to have these things! Don’t spoil it or let others spoil it!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Terry Wane Benton “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). The kingdom should feature an emphasis on righteousness. Living by righteous standards is what the kingdom is about. Dietary laws of the Old Testament had illustration value in foreshadowing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[448,1287,454,238],"class_list":["post-65702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-church","tag-joy","tag-peace","tag-righteousness"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":95697,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/eating-foods-formerly-designated-as-unclean\/","url_meta":{"origin":65702,"position":0},"title":"Eating Foods Formerly Designated as Unclean","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 19, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Romans 14 shows that liberty in Christ has taken all \"unclean\" foods under the Law of Moses off the list of unclean. However, those who grew up under that Law had a hard time releasing their conscience into such liberties in Christ. If pork were unclean,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":60620,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-the-sermon-on-the-mount-nailed-to-the-cross\/","url_meta":{"origin":65702,"position":1},"title":"Was the Sermon on the Mount Nailed to the Cross?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 30, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry W. Benton There has not been a more fundamental question about how to rightly divide the word of truth and how to apply the scriptures than this one. At first, you might think this question is preposterous, but bear with me. There are brethren lurking in churches today\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":59522,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-search-for-assurance\/","url_meta":{"origin":65702,"position":2},"title":"The Search for Assurance","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Paul Earnhart It was a discussion between preacher friends.\u00a0 We were wrestling with the question of how confident Christians ought to be, moment by moment, about their salvation. Some were arguing for absolute assurance, others for a more cautious one. There is perhaps no concern that weaves its way\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":95294,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/righteousness\/","url_meta":{"origin":65702,"position":3},"title":"Righteousness","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 28, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton In Jesus' great sermon on the mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus spoke of the necessary principles of those who would be part of His kingdom. He said that if our standard of \"righteousness\" did not exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, we could by \"no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":58634,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-pearl-of-great-price\/","url_meta":{"origin":65702,"position":4},"title":"The Pearl of Great Price","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Richard Thetford In Matthew 13:45-46 Jesus is trying to emphasize to us how precious the kingdom of heaven is. He says \"the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/pearls.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":48047,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/seek-first-the-kingdom\/","url_meta":{"origin":65702,"position":5},"title":"Seek First the Kingdom","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 3, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"by Keith Sharp Billy was 6 years old. It was springtime, close to summer vacation. When school was out, he and his mom, a widow who was remarrying, were moving. He came home from school and told his mom he wouldn't return to baseball. When she asked why, he replied,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}