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163 reviews for:
Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
N.T. Wright
4.33 AVERAGE
163 reviews for:
Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
N.T. Wright
4.33 AVERAGE
I really enjoyed this one, even though I am already an NT Wright fan.
My few hesitations here (like his incessant condemnation of dualism which eventually makes him sound like a dualist himself) are far outweighed by the positives this book has to offer most readers. In particular, this is his book I think American Christian readers could most benefit from, as his Anglican slants offer a consistent corrective to some of what we've gotten ourselves into on this side of the pond. Surprised by Hope occupies the middle ground between his scholarly tomes and his popular level books, making this a perfect blend of substance and accessibility. He covers seemingly every sub-theme of Christianity through the single, focused lens of resurrection in a non cheesy or forced way, which is a remarkable feat. Apparently, the resurrection is important.
This is at the top of my list of the most important books for the church written in our generation
This is the best book I’ve read. Full review coming…
Well I think I already need to read this again. But this was fantastic. I was underlining almost every other paragraph it seemed! Well- researched and did give me “hope”!
Wright has outdone himself in this one with his EXTRAORDINARY case for what Christ's resurrection implies about our present (and future) world. Provocative and dense in places, but worth putting the time & thought into. Wright has constructed a necessary book for every Christian. It is one I will continue to reference throughout my Christian life. My only regret is not having read it sooner!
If nothing else it has beaten the biblical understanding of the resurrection into my brain. Perhaps that was the point and by the time I got to the part about re-shaping the church for mission, I understood it. What you believe about death and the future will shape how live. If you think you go to some unbodied spiritual reality when you die, you won't give two hoots about this life and world. But the centre of our faith is the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and that's what is eventually in store for us as well. Felt very long and not very entry level, sometimes he quoted his larger work on this so often I felt like putting this down to go read that. Sometimes it was easy to read, at other times, really hard work. But I can't argue with the impact it's had on me.
What is our hope for the future? And what does that hope mean for us today? Is our hope a pie-in-the-sky hope of being whisked away to heaven? Wright offers a beautiful re-imagination for the modern Christian that reclaims the biblical reality of heaven. Heaven is not, as we often think, a distant far-off spiritual reality. On the contrary, heaven is the “hidden dimension of our ordinary life" (p. 19). When we reframe our spirituality around this reality, we will stop wishing for the day when we will escape this world, but rather will be active agents of the new creation that is springing up around us as we await for Christ to redeem and restore all that is broken. As we live into a realized eschatology, we can truly pray "Thy Kingdom come" and then go out and be a part of it.
informative
slow-paced