Jesus' dual commandment to love God and neighbour, in that order, was clearly central to the teachings of the earliest communities of believers. Paul’s reduction of this twin commandment (Galatians 5.13; Romans 13.9) to love of neighbour was therefore very significant, as Spinoza and Taubes both noticed. How, then, to account for Paul’s audacity? Building on related readings of Paul from Heidegger and Agamben, particularly their respective interpretations of Paul’s hos me (“as not”) of 1 Corinthians 7.29-32, this article seeks a context for Paul’s reduction. It finds it in Paul’s messianic conception of worldliness as something to appropriate or use, but never as something to transcend in otherworldliness. Whether appropriation (Heidegger) or use (Agamben) is a better rendering of this insight into the messianic vocation is also discussed. While appropriation continues to assume a subject that seizes worldliness, use has the advantage of conceiving messianic subjectivity as entirely in-the-world.