Friday, June 20, 2008

The New Heavens & The New Earth As Understood By N. T. Wright

As genuine human beings, from Genesis 1 onward, we are given the mandate of looking after creation, of bringing order to God's world, of establishing and maintaining communities. To suppose that we are saved, as it were, for our own private benefit, for the restoration of our own relationship with God (vital though that is!), and for our eventual homecoming and peace in heaven (misleading though that is!) is like a boy being given a baseball bat as a present and insisting that since it belongs to him, he must always and only play with it in private. But of course you can only do what you're meant to do with a baseball bat when you're playing with other people. And salvation only does what it's meant to do when those who have been saved, are being saved, and will one day fully be saved realize that they are saved not as souls but as wholes and not for themselves alone but for what God now longs to do through them.
- N. T. Wright (Suprised by Hope pg. 199-200)

N. T. Wright was featured on the Colbert Report discussing the ideology concerning life after death (which he deals with in his new book titled Suprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church).




You can buy the book here.
I obtained the above quote here.
Some questions:
-What do you think of the message put forth by Wright?
-What does scripture say concerning our life after death?
-Is his teaching plausible?
-Why do you think this teaching was "lost" during the medieval times?

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