My "Where is Heaven?" message raised a lot of questions. I'm glad. It's a topic worth discussing.

It's important to know that when I spoke about bodily resurrection, the renewal of the earth and the "New Jerusalem" coming to us, I was not presenting a new theology. Rather I was trying to articulate the understanding of those early Jewish Christians.

"The goal or proper end of human life, according to the Old Testament, is not the individual soul's flight from the constraints of time and body. It is instead the enjoyment of wholeness in communion with God and God's people, amid a healed and no longer strife-driven creation. In this enduring Jewish tradition, the New Testament looks ahead to the communal resurrection of those redeemed in Christ (1 Corinthians 15) and longs for the healing of the 'whole creation' (Romans 8:18-30)."

—Rodney Clapp

Our concepts of disembodied spirits in heaven are the result of pagan Greek philosophy, not the New Testament.

If you want to explore this topic more thoroughly I would highly recommend N.T. Wright's, "Surprised by Hope." Go to my "I Recommend..." page, click on the book and it will take you to the Amazon listing.

I ended my message with an extended quote from Wright's book. I want to share that with you. His description of our present work in building for the present/future Kingdom of Heaven is a thing of beauty.

“You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that’s about to roll over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that’s shortly going to be thrown into the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that’s about to be dug up for a building site. You are—strange though it may seem, almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself—accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God’s new world. Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world—all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make.”

—N. T. Wright