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Original airdate: Wednesday, November 20, 2019
(unedited/draft show notes here, not a transcript)
Lead:
The Christian life is an interesting “now AND not yet" life. Today we’ll look at heaven — now, and the one to come.
Intro:
I’ll be honest, I don’t really know who Ernest Becker was, but as I understand it, he wasn’t a Christian when he wrote, in a book called Denial of Death,
This is the most remarkable achievement of the Christian world picture: that it could take slaves, cripples, imbeciles, the simple and the mighty, and make them all secure heroes, simply by taking a step back from the world into another dimension of things, the dimension called heaven. Or we might better say that Christianity took creature consciousness—the thing man most wanted to deny—and made it the very condition for his cosmic heroism. Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
Notice his use of language when he said, “Christian world picture.” You’ve heard me often talk about worldview and how every single person on the planet has some belief about the four areas every worldview seeks to provide answers for — origin, meaning, morality, and destiny.
So I want to be careful with reading too much into this quote, but if a non-Christian is talking about the beauty of heaven, that’s insightful.
The Good News is that hope, in a biblical sense, isn’t “hope I win the lottery” — it’s an assuredness of something that will happen based on trusting the One who made the promise.
That’s what Paul today is going to be saying to the little upstart church in Thessalonica. Spiritual growth, or even our steadfastness in the face of trouble or even persecution, is for a payoff that’s beyond comprehension.
So I know yesterday I said I’d spend some of today doing a little vision casting for the podcast next year, but I decided I couldn’t let this passage slip by without spending a little time on vision for the real hope that we have. Sit tight, I’ve got some tasty morsels awaiting you in today’s All Our Minds segment.
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Bible:
Passage: 1 Thessalonians 5
Translation: HCSB (Holman Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 28
Words: ~579
All Our Minds:
Audio only today. Source: Randy Alcorn: https://www.epm.org/blog/2015/Apr/22/present-heaven-future-heaven
Wisdom:
Passage: Proverbs 14:18-15:7
Translation: HCSB (Holman Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 24
Words: ~381
Love you!
-R
ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.
Sources and resources:
Thank you for supporting this ministry should you choose to use the Amazon affiliate links below.
Not used today, but stuff I like:
D. A. Carson, For the Love of God: A Daily Companion for Discovering the Riches of God’s Word., vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1998).
Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993). <—this, and it’s OT companion, are great commentaries if you like something more than a study Bible and less than a set of 66 books — they add a lot of interesting details. Keener’s a killer apologist, too.
The Story of Reality, Greg Koukl — Love this book. A killer intro to the Christian worldview that is philosophically and theologically sound while being accessible to all readers.