Page 18, paragraph 2:

I refer to the power that the kingdom of the world wields as “the power of the sword.” …The power of the sword is the ability to coerce behavior by threats and to make good on those threats when necessary: if a law is broken, you will be punished. Of course, the laws of the different versions of the kingdom of the world vary greatly, but the raised sword behind the laws gives them their power, and that keeps every version of the kingdom of the world intact.

Page 53, 3rd paragraph:

If we accepted the simple principle that the kingdom of God looks like Jesus, and if we were completely resolved that our sole business as kingdom-of-God citizens is to advance this kingdom by replicating Jesus’ gracious love toward others, neither we nor the world would have to deliberate about where “the true church” is. Once we understand that the kingdom looks like Jesus, attracting tax collectors and prostitutes, serving the sick, the poor, and the oppressed, it is as obvious when it is present as it is when absent.  There’s nothing invisible about it.

Page 54, first full paragraph:

Not everything about the kingdom of the world is bad. Insofar as versions of the kingdom of the world use their power of the sword to preserve and promote law, order, and justice, they are good.  But the kingdom of thr world, by definition, can never be the kingdom of God. It doesn’t matter that we judge it good because it stands for the principles we deem inportant - “liberty and justice for all,” for example. No version of the kingdom of the world, however how comparatively good it may be, can protect its self-interests while loving its enemies, turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, or blessing those who persecute it. Yet loving our enemies and blessing those who persecute us is precisely what kingdom-of-God citizens are called to do. It’s what it means to be Christian.  By definition, therefore, you can no more have a Christian worldly government than you can have a Christian petunia or aardvark.  A nation may have noble ideals and be committed to just principles, but it’s not for this reason Christian.

Page 63, last paragraph:

Our central job is not to solve the world’s problems.  Our job is to draw our entire life from Christ and manifest that life to others.  Nothing could be simpler - and nothing could be more challenging. Perhaps this partly explains why we have allowed ourselves to be so thoroughly co-opted by the world. It’s hard to communicate to a prostitute her unsurpassable worth by taking up a cross for her, serving her for years, gradually changing her on the inide, and slowliy winning the trust to speak into her life (and letting her speak into our life, for we too are sinners). Indeed, this sort of Calvary-like love requires one to die to self. It is much easier, and more gratifying, to assume a morally superior stance and feel good about doing our Christian duty to vote against “the sin of prostitution.” Perhaps this explains why many evangelicals spend more time fighting against certain sinners in the political arena than they do sacrificing for those sinners. But Jesus calls us and empowers us to follow his example by taking the more difficult, less obvious, much slower, and more painful road - the Calvary road. It is the road of self-sacrificial love.

Page 72, paragraph 1

…the reason God now calls kingdom people to remain separate from the ways of the kingdom-of-the-world is niot 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.