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,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"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":59522,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-search-for-assurance\/","url_meta":{"origin":65702,"position":0},"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":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":58634,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-pearl-of-great-price\/","url_meta":{"origin":65702,"position":2},"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":23233,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/doctrinal-matters\/","url_meta":{"origin":65702,"position":3},"title":"Doctrinal Matters","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 6, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"by Doy Moyer When we think of \u201cdoctrinal\u201d issues, we tend to think of matters like marriage and divorce, the work of the church, baptism, etc. We work hard to try to get these right, and there are often sharp disagreements over the nature of these \u201cdoctrinal\u201d matters. \u201cDoctrine\u201d means\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\/2020\/06\/love-your-neighbor-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5191,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-gods-kingdom-vegetarian\/","url_meta":{"origin":65702,"position":4},"title":"Is God’s kingdom vegetarian?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 8, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Is God's kingdom vegetarian? When Christ restores peace will he fulfill Isaiah's prophecy? Will humans still kill animals? Will Lions still kill lambs? Will the wolf still hunt the sheep? According to Isaiah and Jesus, the strong will protect the weak, and creatures whom the fallen nature of our\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37558,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-kingdom-of-god-was-established-in-acts-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":65702,"position":5},"title":"The Kingdom of God Was Established in Acts 2","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 2, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dream of four consecutive world empires (Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Grecian, and Roman) and in the days of the fourth kingdom on earth (Roman) God would \"set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed\" (Daniel 2:44) and \"it shall stand forever.\" Jesus Reigns as\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}]}}