Book Review : Surprised by Hope, Tom Wright

OK. Let’s play word association. I say ‘Heaven’ and you say ‘Hell’; I say ‘Resurrection’ and you say ‘Easter’; I say ‘Left’ and you say ‘Behind’; I say ‘eschatology’ and you say ‘what?’ or cheat and say ‘Second Coming’.

If that’s something (anything) like the way the game would go, then you’ll find Tom Wright’s book challenging, informative, stretching and stimulating. 

His book is an exposition of the theme that ‘eschatology’ is not about Jesus appearing back on the earth (although it includes that), but rather about "the entire sense of God’s future for the world, and the belief that that future has already begun and come forward to meet us in the present".

Ranging widely across themes such as ‘salvation’, ’eternal life’,  ‘the second coming’, ‘heaven’, ‘paradise’, ‘rapture’, ‘God’s Kingdom’, and the place of ‘space-time-matter’ in God’s purposes, Tom Wright’s sound Biblical and historical scholarship reveal fresh insights on just about every page. The non-specialist should not be put off, though, since this is Tom Wright at his most accessible.

One of the common errors of many books on the ‘end times’ is that they tend to be rather full of somewhat arid theological arguments which leave you wondering whether those writing the book see any link between their Last Days doctrine and their next day’s doings. Thankfully, Tom Wright concludes his book on the age to come – God’s renewal of all things, already started in the Resurrection of his Son – with a section on the mission of the church in response to such an end-time goal.

If the renewal of space and time and matter is really where God is taking everything, then how do we get caught up in that mission now? ‘A ‘mission-shaped’ church’, he argues, "must have its mission shaped by its hope" and his reflections on what that might mean helpfully provide the body of his compelling theological argument (chapters 1-11) with some very practical hands and feet (chapters 12-15).

So go on, sell all of those pseudo-theological 'Left Behind' books on e-bay and buy ‘Surprised by Hope’. Just don’t leave it too long, though. Everyone will be talking about this - and you don’t want to be left behind do you?