{"id":21,"date":"2010-05-07T08:45:33","date_gmt":"2010-05-07T08:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/2010\/05\/surprised-by-hope.html"},"modified":"2010-05-07T08:45:33","modified_gmt":"2010-05-07T08:45:33","slug":"surprised-by-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/05\/surprised-by-hope.html","title":{"rendered":"Surprised by Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church<\/p>\n

It's Friday and we're about to start board meetings here at Children's HopeChest, so off to the races! I have a great book recommendation for you this week. It's by a theologian I quite respect. Read this book. It will challenge your walk and force you to focus on deeper spiritual issues. Here's a breakdown:<\/p>\n

In Surprised by Hope<\/a>, N.T. Wright focuses on three things that are important to your faith:<\/p>\n

1. Taking a look at Christianity's understanding of life after death and grounding it sound theology.<\/p>\n

2. A huge focus on his views of eschatology (the end of all things and the destiny of man) that come from his many writings on the Resurrection of Jesus.<\/p>\n

3. He talks about what it looks like for a Christian to live on this earth by giving their lives to evangelism, spirituality, and social justice. I like this part!<\/p>\n

This is definitely a book that will force you to think. Sometimes we need to escape and read a good fiction book and sometimes we need to pick up something that causes us to wrestle with theology. Happy wrestling. <\/p>\n

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Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church It's Friday and we're about to start board meetings here at Children's HopeChest, so off to the races! I have a great book recommendation for you this week. It's by a theologian I quite respect. Read this book. 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A tireless advocate for fatherless children, Davis has spent most of his adult life calling U.S. believers to become the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to the 143 million orphans living around the world. Through those connections, thousands of orphans now have the bright and hopeful future--one that is filled with opportunities and the love of the one true Father. Davis speaks hundreds of times each year at churches and conferences, mobilizing the church to action on behalf of the poor. He is the author of four books. His most recent novel, SCARED is a fictionalized account of his first-hand experiencing living and working with orphans in Swaziland, Africa. Davis' blog is the premier resource for the latest developments in Christian orphan ministry. Davis also currently teaches courses as adjunct professor at George Fox University in Newberg, OR. When not traveling the globe, Davis resides in the mountains of Colorado in the small community of Palmer Lake. He and his wife Emily have seven children, including two adopted daughters from Russia.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/author\/tdavis"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}