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Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
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Average Rating:  out of 41 Reviews
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Price: $24.95
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Sale: $14.88
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Manufacturer: HarperOne
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EAN (European Article Number): 9780061551826
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Hardcover
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Author: N. T. Wright
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Publisher: HarperOne
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Dewey Decimal Number: 236
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Publication Date: 2008-02-01
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Reading Level: 352
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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 wrong answer. It is not heaven. Award-winning author 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 premier Bible scholars, asserts that Christianity's most distinctive idea 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 earth," revealing what happens to the dead until then and what will happen with the "second coming" of Jesus. For many, including many Christians, all this will come as a great surprise. Wright convincingly argues that what we believe about life after death directly affects what we believe 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 working 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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Customer Reviews
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Review Summary: Still waiting for this to arrive--the 2nd time it's been ordered |
Date: 2008-11-29 |
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Details: Why do you ask for a review when I am still waiting for the shipment? This is the 2nd time I have ordered this book, so I hope this one actually arrives. The first one never came. |
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Review Summary: Turned my Theology Upside-Down! |
Date: 2008-11-24 |
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Details: This book has quickly jumped to the top of my list of life-shaping, world-view defining books. N.T. Wright is noted as a very well-respected scholar and cited as the foremost expert in 1st Century Jewish Christianity and it shows. This book reveals how influenced Western Christianity is by Greek philosophy that stands in stark contrast to the Jewish belief systems that shaped the early Christians. Wright uses the scriptures to support everything that he postulates, but he offers as well the original context that only a first century scholar can bring. I found over and over that the original first century context radically changed the intended meaning of New Testament texts. In addition, he points out some very clear, direct scripture regarding the belief in bodily resurrection that has totally escaped me with the personal Platonic grid that I have been culturally trained to accept as absolute truth.
Finally, my favorite part of the book is that Wright shows that we, as believers in Christ, have purpose in our current life on this earth and it is tied directly to fact that His kingdom has already come AND the hope that we have in the coming kingdom when all of creation will be restored to God's original design. |
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Review Summary: Reshaped my understanding of heaven |
Date: 2008-11-17 |
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Details: This is a fantastic book that will completely (and Biblically) reshape the way you think about Heaven and life after death (or as Wright calls it, "Life after life after death"). This is a great read for those searching to better understand the Hope Christians are supposed to have, but have somehow forgotten over the last centuries. It turns out we have something to be even MORE excited about beyond a lofty cloud in the sky. Wright points to Scripture and Church History in order to make a convincing argument that what we often think of as Heaven and the meaning of "resurrection" actually needs to be revised. This book should be read and considered by EVERYONE who has ever read or bought-into the theology encapsulated in some well intended (albeit theologically questionable) Christian books such as the Left Behind series. This is by far the best book I have read in the past few years. |
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Review Summary: Surprised by Hope - Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church |
Date: 2008-11-16 |
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Details: I have a new favorite author/theologian in N.T. Wright, author of Surprised by Hope. He knows how to communicate lofty, theological concepts in a way that both makes sense and engages the reader to think. So much of what we think about theology is tainted by our church and political.
The mistake that many are making these days is they are re-INVENTING and re-DEFINING theology. Some people are taking the party's theological line without thinking about it at all. Re-THINKING is absolutely healthy and necessary.
Wright doesn't get too complicated. He looks at one topic: "thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on heaven as on earth." He looks at that phrase in the Lord's Prayer in light of Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.
By the time you get done reading the book, you actually feel hopeful - like God wants to do great things with your life and that He wants to develop your gifts for eternal kingdom work and application. How cool is that? |
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Review Summary: Pleasantly Surprised by Wright |
Date: 2008-11-11 |
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Details: It has often been said that Christianity stands or falls on its doctrine of Justification by faith. In fact it as Martin Luther who said that (surprise surprise). I would offer a hearty Amen to that statement. But a better statement woud be, I would say, is that Christianity stands or falls on the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Recently I got a copy of N.T. Wright's "Surprised by Hope" and it blew me away. I've always been skeptical of Wright but there was very little occasion for it this time. Taking on the subject of death, heaven, resurrection and everything associated with that is not easy task but Wright does it so well. His experience with death mirrors my own. The only funeral I've attended was my Grandmothers when I was 20. Apart from that one time I have had very little contact with death. I suspect this may be the case for many. In the west we are seldom confronted with the sheer ugliness of death compared with someone in Africa or other parts of the third world where life carries a lot less currency.
I'd just like to highlight a few key points from this book that impacted me. First off, the Christian hope is not to go to heaven when we die. If we die before Jesus returns then we do go to heaven or paradise whatever you'd like to call it, but it is not our final resting place. Its an intermediate state. Our hope is for a new heaven and new earth. A renewed and very physical existence. Our life will be as continious and discontinous with our present life as Jesus was before and after the resurrection. While this may not strike anyone as odd the outworking of this truth certainly does. When we think of heaven as our final destination what happens on earth seems to matter very little. Indeed there is a sharp wedge driven between life now and life then. We become heavenly minded to the extent that we are no longer any earthly good. This kind of theology runs aground on two major Biblical grounds from where I can see, and there are possibly a lot more.
Firstly, if we are just supposed to go to heaven when we die to be disembodied spirits, then why on earth did Jesus perform any miracles? Why did he not simply announce that we needed to answer a few questions, pray a simple prayer and be sure of going to heaven? Miracles become pointless if there is no resurrection. But they do have a point and some meaning for those who receive them. They are signposts that point toward a future time when our bodies will be perfected, they will no longer be subject to disease, decay and death. They are signs of eternity breaking into the present. Signs that the worlds creator God has become Lord of all Creation as Wright says. Secondly this theology runs aground (and this is biggest one in my opinion) when it comes to what Christ accomplished on the cross. We speak of death as a defeated enemy, the one that Jesus defeated with his work on the cross. But if there is no resurrection then death has actually won the battle. In effect we are colluding with death and settling for a disembodied existence instead of a fully resurrected and glorified new body. I can't make sense of Jesus' victory over death any other way.
The second major area I was impacted was Easter. As Wright argues we seem to have got our celebrations around the wrong way. Personally I've felt this too. By the time it comes to Easter we seem to celebrate very little. But take Easter away from the Bible and we lose the entire New Testament. The Gospels become pointless stories of a good man who taught a nice way to behave, the Epistles cease to exist. The communities formed around the dying and rising of Christ, not because they liked each other (often inspite of that). Take out the resurrection and Paul had no communities to write to. Wright believes we need a greater emphasis on Easter in the Church. Indeed we should celebrate it a lot more than Christmas. We should treat it as the crowning moment in all of Christendom. Without it there is no Christianity.
Lastly this book helped me to get a handle on the big picture. We are not saved as souls but as wholes. Salvation is a bigger answer to the cosmic problem of sin. It helped me to make sense of creation in light of eternity and to see it as something very good made by an incredibly good God, but deeply flawed by sin. Funny enough this also helped me make sense of Lloyd Jones' book "Preaching and Preachers". Lloyd Jones insists that the Church is the only organisation that can tell man about his deepest need, to be reconciled to God. The pulpit is not the place preach social justice as a means to an end, but to preach the Gospel. I realise that this kind of thinking offends some people who see this as justification for being passive bystanders while the world goes to pot. Some say that for evil to prosper good men must do nothing and that is quite true. But I don't think that Lloyd Jones and Wright are diametricaly opposed. Both would argue that social justice is a neccessary part of the Gospel, but both would stress that there needs to be a reason for that action. Without the Gospel we lose our hope and thus our reason for that action. When we gather together at Church to hear the Gospel proclaimed it fills us afresh to get out into the world and proclaim "Jesus is Lord"!
The Gospel message is the power of God unto salvation as Paul writes in Romans, and that is the only true and lasting power for any social action or reform. If we don't preach the Gospel we end up with the "Social Gospel". Without preaching it the Church becomes like any other political agency and this is what I think Lloyd Jones was carefully arguing against. He wasn't against social justice. Some might think that Wright is a social reformer, but he is doing so very biblically in a way that I'm sure Lloyd Jones would have approved. Wherever the Gospel message goes it brings life, hope, reconciliation, forgiveness, and peace. It does so with a power that we struggle to comprehend. A power that is made manifest in weakness, brokeness and foolishness. But that power that appears foolish to some is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.
Lately I can see a change in myself. When someone preaches about Jesus my heart sings. When someone talks about the Holy Spirit I feel His presence. When someone talks about the Love of Father for the world I am moved with reverence and awe. As I type this I am more aware of the presence of God. I feel that each day the Lord is remaking me in His image. Slowly and surely I am becoming more like Jesus. Wright was right. The Resurrection brings about a new way of knowing, a new epistemology, that uses our five senses but at times transcends them. I wish I could explain it with better words, but I lose myself in the language of Love.
You don't have to agree with everything in this book. Sometimes Wrights "New Perspective" comes up especially with justification "on the whole life lived". I don't agree but thats a debate for another time. As one review put it, the wheat in this book far outweighs the chaff. You just have to read this book, its a must for any Christian.
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