Our culture is so fixated on dying and going to heaven when the whole Scripture is about heaven coming to earth.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that religious teachings focus on bringing divine qualities to our earthly existence rather than just aiming for an afterlife.
N. T. Wright's quote suggests that much of religious scripture emphasizes the importance of creating a heavenly experience on Earth, rather than merely looking forward to an afterlife in heaven. It points to a cultural fixation on death and what comes afterward, diverting attention from the transformative power of spirituality that can manifest in daily life, urging individuals to seek and cultivate a sense of heaven in their current existence.
In practice
During a church sermon to inspire a congregation about living purposefully.
The resurrection completes the inauguration of God's kingdom. . . . It is the decisive event demonstrating thet God's kingdom really has been launched on earth as it is in heaven." "The message of Easter is that God's new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you're now invited to belong to it.
True worship doesn't put on a show or make a fuss; true worship isn't forced, isn't half-hearted, doesn't keep looking at its watch, doesn't worry what the person in the next pew is doing. True worship is open to God, adoring God, waiting for God, trusting God even in the dark.
Most of the things that really matter require faith. How do I know that my wife loves me? How do I know that Mozarts Jupiter Symphony is sublime and beautiful? There are all sorts of things which come at a more lowly level than that - How do I know that two plus two equals four? There are different layers, different types of knowing.
To get overprotective about particular readings of the Bible is always in danger of idolatry.
Without God's Spirit, there is nothing we can do that will count for God's kingdom. Without God's Spirit, the church simply can't be the church.
I'm not a universalist, and the way I talk about final loss is this: People worship idols - money, whatever. Their humanness gets reshaped around the idol - you become like what you worship. That's one of the basic spiritual laws.
Free-will doctrine-what does it? It magnifies man into God. It declares God's purposes a nullity, since they cannot be carried out unless men are willing. It makes God's will a waiting servant to the will of man, and the whole covenant of grace dependent on human action. Denying election on the ground of injustice, it holds God to be a debtor to sinners.
Whenever A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel.
Night falls fast. Today is in the past.
Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.
The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.
The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it.
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