Bosch on Pauline Ethics

"The life and work of the Christian community are intimately bound up with God's cosmic-historical plan for the redemption of the universe. It most certainly matters what Christians do and how authentically they demonstrate the mind of Christ and the values of the reign of God in their daily lives. Since the forces of the future are already at work in the world, Paul's apocalyptic is not an invitation to ethical passivity, but to active participation in God's redemptive will. He is charged with enlarging in this world the domain of God's coming world. Therefore, precisely because of his concern for the "ultimate", he is preoccupied with the "penultimate"; his involvement is in what is at hand rather than in what will be.... It is impossible to believe in God's coming triumph without being agitators for God's kingdom here and now, and without an ethic that strains and labors to move God's creation toward the realization of God's promise in Christ."

-David J. Bosch