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#035 – Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Pt 10 – Bodily Resurrection) [Podcast]

As we saw in the first two chapters, there is no agreement in the church today about what happens to people when they die. Not surprisingly, therefore, there is also confusion in the wider, non-Christian world not only about the fate of the dead but also about what Christians are supposed to believe on the subject.

Bodily Resurrection

Bodily Resurrection

This is all the more curious in that the New Testament itself, which most churches officially regard as their primary doctrinal source, is crystal clear on the matter. In a classic passage, Paul speaks of “the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). There is no room for doubt as to what he means: God’s people are promised a new type of bodily existence, the fulfillment and redemption of our present bodily life. The rest of the early Christian writings, where they address the subject, are completely in tune with this.

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#034 – Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Pt 9 – Second Coming) [Podcast]

The second coming of Jesus … or better the “presencing” of Jesus physically back in our time/space … has greatly confused the modern church.  Two episodes ago, we sketched the big picture of cosmic redemption that the New Testament invites us to make our own. God will redeem the whole universe; Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of that new life, the fresh grass growing through the concrete of corruption and decay in the old world.

Second Coming

Second Coming

That final redemption will be the moment when heaven and earth are joined together at last, in a burst of God’s creative energy for which Easter is the prototype and source. When we put together that big picture with what we’ve said in the previous chapter about the ascension of Jesus, what do we get? Why, of course, the personal presence of Jesus, as opposed to his current absence.

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#033 – Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Pt 8 – Ascension) [Podcast]

Belief that Jesus of Nazareth has been raised from the dead is closely linked in the New Testament with the belief that he has been taken into heaven, where, in the words of the psalm, he has been seated at the right hand of God.

Ascension

Ascension

In fact, some kind of belief in Jesus’s ascension has recently been shown to be not just a strange added extra to Christian belief, as has sometimes been thought, but a central and vital feature without which all sorts of other things start to go demonstrably wrong.

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#032 – Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Pt 7 – Resurrection Special) [Podcast]

On this episode, we want to do another deep-dive into the issue of “resurrection.”  I recently uncovered a rare-TV episode by N.T. Wright where he talks at length about resurrection.

Resurrection Special

Resurrection Special

I play an edited version of this show in the podcast.  You can also watch the entire show in the links below.

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#031 – Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Pt 6 – New Creation) [Podcast]

The early Christians did not believe in progress. They did not think the world was getting better and better under its own steam—or even under the steady influence of God. They knew God had to do something fresh to put it to rights. But neither did they believe that the world was getting worse and worse and that their task was to escape it altogether. They were not dualists.

New Creation

New Creation

Since most people who think about these things today tend toward one or other of those two points of view, it comes as something of a surprise to discover that the early Christians held a quite different view. They believed that God was going to do for the whole cosmos what he had done for Jesus at Easter. This is such a surprising belief, and so little reflected on even in Christian circles, still less outside the church, that we must set it out step by step and show how the different early writers developed different images that together add up to a stunning picture of a future for which, so they insisted, the whole world was waiting on tiptoe.

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#030 – Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Pt 5 – Optimism and Negativity) [Podcast]

When we look at the contemporary world and church, we discover great confusion about future hope but that when we look at the early Christians, we find not just faith but a very precise and specific faith, both about Jesus and his resurrection and about the future life that God had promised to all his people.

Optimism and Negativity

Optimism and Negativity

This isn’t a matter of ancient people being credulous and modern people being skeptical. There is a great deal of credulity in our present world, and there was a great deal of skepticism in the ancient world. It is rather something to do with the very specific worldview that was generated by the events concerning Jesus, and supremely the event of Easter itself.

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#029 – Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Pt 4 – Resurrection) [Podcast]

If the disciples simply saw, or thought they saw, someone they took to be Jesus, that would not by itself have generated the stories we have. Everyone in the ancient world took it for granted that people sometimes had strange experiences involving encounters with the dead, particularly the recently dead. They knew at least as much as we do about such visions, about ghosts and dreams—and the fact that such things often occurred within the context of bereavement or grief. They had language for this, and it wasn’t resurrection.

Resurrection

Resurrection

However many such visions they’d had, they wouldn’t have said Jesus was raised from the dead; they weren’t expecting such a resurrection.

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#028 – Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Pt 3 – Early Christian Hope in its Historical Setting) [Podcast]

The ancient world—with the exception of the Jews—was adamant that dead people did not rise again; and the Jews did not believe that anyone had done so or that anyone would do so all by themselves in advance of the general resurrection. But the early church had a much different message.

Early Christian Hope

Early Christian Hope

But even when we’ve cleared away those misunderstandings, deep questions remain. What precisely was it that the early Christians believed? Why did they use the language of resurrection to express that belief?

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#027 – Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Pt 2 – Puzzled About Paradise) [Podcast]

Not only is the world at large confused about death, but most in the Christian world as well.  There are many people “puzzled about Paradise.”  What is “heaven” and isn’t the “kingdom of heaven” just another way of saying the same thing?  What is this thing called “Paradise” and how has the Church so radically gotten away from the earliest Christian view of the afterlife?

Puzzled About Paradise

Puzzled About Paradise

In this lesson, we talk about some of the things that has confused the church on this issue … from not understanding a Jewish mindset, down to the very music we listen to in church.

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#026 – Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Pt 1 – Intro) [Podcast]

What are we waiting for? And what are we going to do about it in the meantime? What is the “blessed hope” for a Christian?  What is “heaven” all about, and is our hope simply a matter of “going to heaven when we die”?  Or is there something more than some of us have been taught in most churches?

Surprised by Hope

Surprised by Hope

We begin a new series where we dig deep into “Surprised by Hope” by N.T. Wright.  “Surprised by Hope” is a great resource, and I would highly encourage you to pick up the book as we study it.

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