"Heaven is the community of persons who have entered the fellowship of the Trinity by allowing themselves to be transformed by the perfect love made available to us in the incarnation of the son of God and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. ... Our character is shaped by the story of our response to God's grace and our interactions with other people." [Jerry Walls]
Discuss.
Discuss.
3 comments:
Where's it say that in the bible?
nice. i like it. i think we "evangelicals" (whatever the... that means) late the references to heaven and the Kingdom of Heaven way too literally.
my study of Revelation (Heaven) and Matthew's gospel (Kingdom of Heaven) has shown me that the focus of these texts is on the community of Christ, not some kind of after-life reward. Why would Heaven have literally streets of gold as most Christians think is literally true?
In our American-Christian mindsets, gold means something different to us than it did to the people in Jesus' audience. For us, it means personal wealth and power in a capitalist society. Why would God give us something he wants us to pull away from? (i.e., pursue of wealth for our glory).
Because it's not about our glory at all.
Heaven is the glory of God, and as his people we are that glory as well as only a part of that glory. Our community of fellowship with each other and the Holy is a manifestation of God's glory.
Chris- enjoyed going to the "robell" book tour last night. This philosophy class does challenge me to think- but like you said in a previous post, the whole class lecture on hard determinism was little much (and then not spending even half that time on the "agent" deal wasn't right either). The Heaven quote sounds interesting (as I haven't read this book yet), but I wonder if he's trying to say that there is no physical heaven, or just that this is what it looks like to live out the Lords Prayer- "may Your kingdom come"- in everyday life.
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