In a much needed book, author and scholar N.T. Wright (also known as Tom Wright) former bishop and currently a professor of New Testament and Church history, reframes the concept of the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven. Recovering a more accurate image of the Kingdom idea proclaimed by Jesus, the gospels, and in the Pauline epistles, he brings Christians back from simply thinking about the kingdom of heaven as some future disembodied existence that we look forward to when we die. This view tends to diminish the relevancy of life on this earth. In the lectionary readings for the month of July, the concept of the Kingdom of God is primary, and this book is an excellent read to help us understand a more robust concept of what God is doing in this world and how we participate in it. Very readable, it is the kind of book every Christian should pick up and study. What is the significance of the teaching of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus? How should we understand the idea of the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven? What is new creation? This book is significantly thought provoking and a very important corrective to many Christians current thinking on heaven in what Wright has comes to term "life after life after death".
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