The book is written as an extended exegesis of the Church, the culture, and the work of Jesus through the lens of the Great Commandment. Batterson writes to explore what it would mean for us to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. The fundamental problem of our slack obedience and bitter squabbling and heated conflicts is not in our methodology, tradition, or leadership but in our own failure to love God for all that He is with all that He has made us. That is our individual and corporate sin, and our response should be thorough repentance and learning to love God.

Batterson writes in a personable, casual style that allows the reader to relate and “talk it through” with him. His own experiences of loving God are insightful, often humourous and always convicting as he challenges the reader to pursue the love of God. His challenge invites us back to knowing God, loving God, and serving God in ways that exceed the norm and resonate with the radical nature of our ancient faith. I would recommend Primal with no reservations whatsoever.

And yet, there’s one thing that Paul will have no tolerance for in Corinth: their divisions. In fact, the reason he says he can’t address them as people who are living by the Spirit isn’t due to their lack of proper ethics or seeming ignorance in the Scriptures, but because “there is still jealousy and dissension among you” (3:3). Another shock. Paul will eventually call them to lives worthy of the Gospel in regards to holiness and in relating to the rest of the world and in their worship, but his first priority is their dissensions and schismatic behavior.

Schisms most often occur because of strong reactions to human leaders. In some cases, it is a matter of extreme devotion to particular leaders in the church. In others, it is because of extreme opposition to particular leaders in the church. In all of these cases, Paul is downright disapproving and, perhaps, confused. “What is Apollos, really? Or what is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, and each of us in the ministry the Lord gave us.” (3:5). In other words, not much. God causes the growth. “[Christian leaders] are coworkers belonging to God. You [Christians] are God’s field, God’s building.” (3:9)

And this is where we begin to see the stupidity of these dissensions: why do we moan about Apollos’ humanity or exalt Paul’s apostolic ministry as if we belong to either of them? We are God’s. He called us. He made us grow. He owns us and is building us His way. “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” (3:16). Christians these days too often identify so deeply with human leaders that they are sparking an identity crisis: who are we? Who is a good Christian? Who is a bad Christian? Who needs to repent? Who needs to receive the confession? It’s when we are in the midst of those times we need to remember Paul’s challenge to us: “Are you not influenced by the flesh and behaving like unregenerate people?!” (3:3). It’s despicable when we deny the power of Christ in our lives, and deny the Spirit that lives in us, when we make our dissension about human leaders go this way, and are controlled by their jealousy. If anyone needs to repent, it is us, for behaving so divisively and acting more the like a temple of demons rather than the temple of God.

That doesn’t mean human leaders won’t be held accountable for their work. Neither do they get a free pass on what they do. That’s what Paul interrupts his own rebuke of the Corinthians’ dissension to remind them of: leaders will be held to account. But just like you, as the Church, belong to God, so do the leaders, and God will judge them on the Day of His return (3:9-15). Paul even goes more into detail later on, commanding the Corinthians, “So then, do not judge anything [about leaders] before the time. Wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the motives of hearts. Then each will receive recognition from God.” (4:5). The reason for this is simple: “What do you [Christians] have that you did not receive [from these leaders]? And if you received it, why do you boast as though you did not?” (4:7).

But he returns to addressing the Corinthians here. and pronounces what is perhaps the most dreadful statement in this epistle: “If someone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, which is what you are.” (3:17). That isn’t addressed to human leaders. That is addressed to everyone. If we destroy the Church of God through our dissenting and jealousies, there will be consequences, and the evidence of such unregenerate behavior is that we indeed have unregenerate hearts, and will come under wrath.

It’s why we need Paul’s admonition: “Guard against self-deception, each of you. If someone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become foolish so that he can become wise.” (3:18). If we think we are wise enough to condemn the leaders of the Church, or one another. If we think we have unlocked some deep secret in Scripture about how repentance works, or how Christians are “supposed to” confess or why one method of judgment and vindication for ourselves is biblical, we better check ourselves. Because we live in an age and culture where knowing how to scandalize, shame, and bring down religious leaders (not only Christian ones)  is the epitome of worldly wisdom. We’ve become too good at it. We need to repent.

But when we become foolish – when we commend ourselves into the hands of God, knowing that He cares for His Church, Paul has a word for us: “So then, no more boasting about mere mortals! For everything belongs to you, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future. Everything belongs to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.” (3:21-23). And we will come to it, someday, by the grace of God, when all things will be brought to light, and we shall be as He is.

These all died in faith without receiving the things promised, but they saw them in the distance and welcomed them and acknowledged that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth. For those who speak in such a way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. In fact, if they had been thinking of the land that they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they aspire to a better land, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. (Heb. 11:13-16)

According to the author of Hebrews, these heroes were seeking a homeland, a country, a patris. Patris, the Greek word for “homeland” or “country” in this text refers to one’s native country or “father-land.” He also says that if they’d wanted to return to their own native-lands, they had opportunity for that. “But as it is, they aspire to a better land, a heavenly one.” In other words, the patriarchs had forsaken acknowledging their home countries as their own native lands, recognizing, instead that they were foreigners and exiles on the earth. Just like disciples of Jesus are supposed to be.

You might be objecting by pointing out that Noah had an ark and Abraham and Sarah lived in tents, and Enoch was taken, literally, from the earth and that doesn’t in any way resemble the permanent residency that most Christians, especially in the United States, But at the same time, Scripture tells us that foreigners and exiles is the exact nature of the Church. “You once were not a people, but now you are God’s people. You were shown no mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles to keep away from fleshly desires that do battle against the soul…” (1 Peter 2:10-11). And Peter’s own greeting to these churches in 1 Peter 1:1 tells us that he understands Christians to be just that.

It’s the reason why Justin Martyr, writing half a century later, is able to say “He called Abraham and commanded him to go out from the country where he was living. With this call God has roused us all, and now we have left the state. We have renounced all the things the world offers.”

God made us foreigners and exiles, living in the world, because the patris that he has prepared for us is coming. The author of Hebrews tells us that he has prepared a city. Revelation 21:2 gives us more information about this city: “And I saw the holy city – the new Jerusalem – descending out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband.”

If you are a disciple of Jesus, you’re not an American, a Kenyan, an Italian, a Brazilian, an Australian, or an Indian. You’re a foreigner and exile. And we are the household of God, together, and we’re waiting for a better homeland, that God will bring to us when He comes Himself to make all things new, symbolized in the New Jerusalem. Until the, the house that He has prepared for us is in heaven. This is why we should confess, with the apostle Paul, “But our citizenship is in heaven – and we also await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.” So let us live like patriots – patriots of the Kingdom of God, not any worldly nation.

McKinley is a pastor out in Portland, OR, and in this text, he writes in a winsome, engaging style that will show the reader the clear teaching of Scripture, draw you into the overall narrative of God’s redemptive plan and challenge you to take your place in it. This book is the best I’ve seen that does justice to both the Kingdom and the Church, so check it out.