Interesting and Thought Provoking

The Heaven Promise by Scot McKnight is one man’s fascinating study into heaven. He covers areas such as what the Bible says, why people believe in heaven and finishes with the ten most asked questions about heaven.

Scot McKnight discusses where we get our ideas about heaven from, and interestingly, it is not mainly from the Bible. He states that heaven is God’s promise to the world. “Heaven can’t be proven by logic; it can’t be discovered by scientists; it can’t be established by near death experiences… Heaven is a promise.”

According to Scot McKnight, people believe in one of two types of heaven – theocentric or kingdom centric. The first has God at the centre, the second from what I understand, is based around people.

Jesus and Paul both talked about the promise of heaven, which lead people to believe that heaven exists. The promise of heaven all hangs on the resurrection – Jesus died and rose again and many saw the resurrected Jesus. Scot McKnight says that because of the resurrection, we can have the hope of heaven.

For Christians, death is not the end. There are no ‘goodbyes’, only ‘see you later’s.” However inspite of this promise of heaven, when a loved one is taken, those left behind may still be consumed by grief. To quote one couple following a bereavement ” ‘Remind me of what we believe.’… ‘The tomb is empty.’ ” Even the great theologian C.S. Lewis suffered a terrible fog when his beloved Joy died. “The promise of heaven may excite us, but the reality of death can suck the joy from life.” In times like those all one can do is cling on to the cross and the hope of Jesus.

Even when Jesus faced death, He was still in control. He knew the resurrection and the promise of heaven was ahead. “God’s aim is not to tame death or to silence death, but to defeat death.” We can have the hope of heaven because the power of the cross means death is conquered.

Scot McKnight believes that as Christians we should live as heaven people on earth. We need to keep our eyes on Jesus as if we lose sight of Him, it will be all about us trying to work our way into heaven.

No one really knows what heaven is like but Scot McKnight has clearly researched the subject. He has looked at what the Bible says heaven is and what it says it isn’t. It is a comprehensive study and written in an easy to read style. There were anecdotes and personal stories from well known Christians such as C.S. Lewis and Billy Graham as well as unknown people. There were quotes from scripture which were delved into and explained when needed.

I found The Heaven Promise an interesting and thought provoking read. I can highly recommend it.

JULIA WILSON