Book Review: Surpised by Hope by N. T. Wright (Part 1)

Each summer since 2006 I read a book that radically shifts or reshapes my worldview. In the summer of 2006 it was A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren. This book informed about postmodernism and the emergent church and the joys within. It was controversial, edgy, it pushed some bounderies...and let God out of the rather small box I had placed Him in.

During the summer of 2007 - my summer in Hawaii - I read Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy. This book let me in on the secret that the Gospel had more to do with just Jesus being my personal Lord and Savior. The Gospel is about the Kingdom of God, about God's current reign on earth, the fact that it's here and now and that we are supposed to be enactors of the prayer, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Where there is pain, let there be strength. Where there is hate, let there be love.

This summer I read N. T. Wright's Surpised by Hope. It was a perfect (seeming) culmination to the previous two. Was the point of salvation really just about going to heaven when I died? Did Jesus really come and die and be resurrected just to insure that I would live with Him forever in heavenly, paradisal bliss?

Nope.