Quotes about Hope

The ultimate future hope remains a surprise, partly because at present we only have images and metaphors for it, leaving us to guess that the reality will be far greater, and more surprising, still.

In the Lord, your labour is not in vain: what you do here in faith will stand, will last.

God will download our software onto his hardware until the time when he gives us new hardware to run the software again.25

The destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians in 587 BC had been the worst possible disaster, indicating that Israel's God had abandoned his house, had left the Temple and city to their long-deserved fate. That was the verdict of Ezekiel, and it is echoed by other writers of the period. But that could not be the end of the story. God had promised to come back. He had promised one final great Passover. One day, when he returned, his people would be free forever.

Agendas are what get people, even historians, out of bed in the mornings, though one might hope that, once at the desk, they allow the data to challenge the hypotheses they have dreamed up overnight.

Resurrection, we must never cease to remind ourselves, did not mean going to heaven or escaping death or having a glorious and noble postmortem existence but rather coming to bodily life again after bodily death.

The hope of Israel, expressed variously in the Torah, Prophets, and Psalms, was not for a rescue operation that would snatch Israel (or humans or the faithful) from the world, but for a rescue operation that would be for the world, an operation through which redeemed humans would play once more the role for which they were designed.

The very mention of crucifixion was taboo in polite Roman circles, since it was the lowest form of capital punishment, reserved for slaves and rebels. As for the Jews, the very idea of a crucified Messiah was scandalous. A crucified Messiah was a horrible parody of the kingdom-dreams that many were cherishing. It immediately implied that Israel's national hope was being radically redrawn downward.

The creator God has announced the verdict; the world has been put right; the trees in the field will clap their hands. A new world has been launched, even in the midst of the present old, corrupt and decaying world.

The good news is bigger, better, fuller than you ever imagined.

The resurrection isn't just a surprise happy ending for one person; it is instead the turning point for everything else. It is the point at which all the old promises come true at last: the promises of David's unshakable kingdom; the promises of Israel's return from the greatest exile of them all; and behind that again, quite explicit in Matthew, Luke, and John, the promise that all the nations will now be blessed through the seed of Abraham. If

The resurrection of Jesus is the launching of God's new world.