Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
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- ISBN13: 9780061551826
- Condition: USED – LIKE NEW
- Notes:
Product Description
For years Christians have been asking, “If you died tonight, do you know where you would go?” It turns out that many believers have been giving the incorrect answer. It is not heaven.
Award-winning leader N. T. Wright outlines the present confusion about a Christian’s future hope and shows how it is deeply intertwined with how we live today. Wright, who is one of today’s head of state Bible scholars, asserts that Christianity’s most distinctive thought is bodily resurrection. He provides a magisterial defense for a literal resurrection of Jesus and shows how this became the cornerstone for the Christian community’s hope in the bodily resurrection of all people at the end of the age. Wright then explores our expectation of “new heavens and a new planet,” revealing what happens to the dead until then and what will take place with the “second coming” of Jesus. For many, including many Christians, all this will come as a fantastic surprise.
Wright convincingly argues that what we judge about life after death directly affects what we judge about life before death. For if God intends to renew the whole creation—and if this has already begun in Jesus’s resurrection—the church cannot stop at “saving souls” but must anticipate the eventual renewal by effective for God’s kingdom in the wider world, bringing healing and hope in the present life.
Lively and accessible, this book will surprise and excite all who are interested in the meaning of life, not only after death but before it.
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After reading this, extreme disappointment.
No need to rethink heaven, hell, Gospel, Judgment, Salvation from God’s Wrath, Resurrection, Fantastic Commission, Restoration of Davidic Monarchy by His Majesty King Jesus the First.
Desperate need on part of leader to re-read the Bible with a new optometrist: The Holy Spirit and a Large Print Version.
Sola Scriptura Satis: Scripture alone is sufficient lacking baggage of rabbinic 1st century judaism erudition informed by 21st century revisionism.
Please examine Peter’s and Paul’s sermons in Acts carefully to refute all the leader’s premises and departures from Biblical Gospel.
PICO – Preclusions In Conclusions Out.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Reading this book was appealing becasue his discussion of “Paradise” as being an intermediate state between death and ressurection. This is exactly on point with LDS belief on what happens after death.
The concept of “Paradise” as being an intermediate state, as articulated by N.T. Wright, is clearly clarified in The Book of Mormon: Another Tribute of Jesus Christ (Official Edition) in chapter 40 of the Book of Alma.
The Book of Mormon, first published in 1830, clearly teaches that “there is a time appointed unto men that they shall rise from the dead; and there is a space between the time of death and the resurrection”(Alma 40:9) and that “concerning the state of the soul between death and the resurrection–Behold, it has been made known unto me by an angel, that the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body, yea, the spirits of all men, whether they be excellent or evil, are taken home to that God who gave them life.” (Alma 40:11)
Now, N.T’s Wright isn’t LDS but a Angelican Christian. I don’t know how Mr. Wright feels about an “LDS” reading/interpretation of his book in which one LDS reader sees much agreement between his book and LDS theology. Perhaps he would be pleased by it or maybe he would be miserable with the fact that his book happens to broadly reflect LDS theology on Heaven, Paradise and additional theological issues of life after death.
I hope he understands my respect and enjoyment in his book and that it was refreshing to read this book since he provides well thought out explanation of Christian beliefs and uses evidence to back up his thoughts. For me personally, I loved it because much of what he clarified in the book just take place to line up with LDS theology on life after death.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
Bishop Tom Wright’s explanation of what happens to the Christian after death is strikingly similar to that open in the novel ACTS OF GOD, Book 3 of THE CHRIST CLONE TRILOGY. I am pleased to see this scholarly presentation of persons thoughts. There is, but, one thing that Bishop Wright has not factored into his account, to wit, God is not theme to the restrictions of time.
In truth, the Bible presents a paradox concerning what happens to the dead. From the following verses it is clear that the dead are unaware until their resurrection: Psalms 6:5 and 115:17-18; Isaiah 38:18-19; Job 14:12 and 19:25-27; Luke 14:13-14; Acts 2:29-34; I Corinthians 15:22-23 and 15:51-52. And, yet, the following verses indicate an immediate or near-immediate transition into God’s presence: Luke 23:43; Philippians 1:23.
This is where the issue of time comes in. To make this simple, consider the 1960 movie THE TIME MACHINE with Rod Taylor. From his time machine Rod Taylor watched what was going on around him in quick motion because he traveled *through* time. Contrast that with time travel in BACK TO THE FUTURE. When Marty McFly and Doc Brown traveled forwards in the DeLorean, they traveled straight away, jumping *across* time, from one point to another lacking experiencing any passage of time themselves.
When a Christian dies, he does not travel through time as Rod Taylor did (and as we all do, though at normal speed). The dying Christian closes his eyes to life and passes across time to the point of Christ’s return and the resurrection. Why is it necessary to add this “science fiction” touch to Bishop Wright’s thesis? Because, simply, it is the only way to reconcile the paradox lacking ignoring or discounting verses like Luke 23:43; Philippians 1:23.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
N.T Wright may be a fantastic New Tribute scholar, but he needs to keep his politics out of his books. I bought this to get some insights on how death as sleep reflects 1st century Jewish culture, or similar insights. As a replacement for, Wright prompt his belief that the popularity of dispensationalism in America is clarified as a political ploy to allow All-purpose Motors to pollute the environment. This opinion appears not once, but twice. In a 200 page book. The heroic assumption that all right thinking people will agree with his view is breathtaking. How about limiting yourself to one controversial assertion at a time?
Wright can’t do a book on eschatology and so misunderstand dispensationalism. It’s not some sort of conspiracy to make money – what kind of neo-Marxist nonsense is that? Dispensationalists sincerely judge their views. If one wanted to be a sociologist about it, you can make a fantastic case that the rise of dispensationalism corresponds with the loss of major Christian cultural institutions, like the universities, to secularism, and is a protest movement against a world that oftens seems pointlessly evil and morally corrupt. But adage it’s well loved just so GM can make money (TWICE!) is just really assanine. Reflect about it this way: how would people react to a book where a leading New Tribute scholar speculated that Orthodox Judaism was just a way for Jewish bankers to make money? But anything goes when you’re talking about Americans, especially persons Southerners with their amusing accents. This is bigotry, pure and simple.
In late 2008, we saw the “Huge 3″ U.S. automakers bailed out by the federal government. One would assume from Wright’s book that only dispensationalists would want to save GM, but surprise, surprise, United Church of Christ member Barack Obama led the call for a bailout. This kind of extrapolative incoherence is the rotten fruit of attempts to have a “politically significant” theology.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I was impressed by the explanations that NT Wright gives in his book.
Wright is especially excellent on explaining the descriptions in Hebrews 1 :-
In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the planet,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You will roll them up like a robe;
like a garment they will be changed.
The heavens and planet will be rolled up and discarded, in the way that clothes are changed.
The ancient clothes that have corroded are thrown away, and replaced with new clothes.
The ancient clothes are rolled up and thrown away.
As I said, Wright is very excellent on explaining this ‘clothing’ metaphor, which many people up to now have failed to know.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5