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 The A List
Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
by N.T. Wright (Harper One)
Don’t let the subtitle of this new book by one of the world’s most respected theological and New Testament scholars fool you. By “rethinking” what Jesus,
Paul and other voices from the first centuries of Christianity have to say about heaven, the resurrection and the nature of the world to come, N.T. Wright isn’t interested I modifying or watering down the original Christian message. Instead he wants to remind us of just how truly earth0-shaking that message really is.
Wright says that too many people have a hazy idea of the specific details that the New Testament provides concerning the future life—both for individuals and for the world at large. This is especially the case when it comes to that most central afterlife tenet of the early church: universal resurrection—or as Wright puts it, the belief that “God was going to do for the whole cosmos what he had done for Jesus at Easter.”
How did the first Christians envision heaven? What actually happens to each of us when we pass over from life to death? Grappling with the specific answers the New Testament gives to these questions does more, Wright believes, than give us hope in the future: It allows us to live more effective, energized and positive lives in this world, right here and right now.
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