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Heaven is Not the End – Rediscovering the Christian Hope – Intro

Elijah is taken up to heaven.
Audio Podcast

The Christian Hope

Most Christians, if you asked them what they hope for after death, would probably say something like this:

“I’ll go to heaven.”

And that answer isn’t wrong.

But it’s not the whole story.

In fact, when that answer becomes the entire story, it quietly reshapes how Christians think about their bodies, their work, their suffering—and even the world itself.

This short series exists to recover something larger, richer, and far more biblical:

The Christian hope is not escape from the world, but resurrection and new creation 1Gal 6:15 & Isa 65:17-18.

The Problem We’re Addressing

Over time, many Christians have absorbed a view of the future that sounds spiritual—but actually shrinks the Bible’s vision.

It goes something like this:

  • Earth is temporary
  • Heaven is permanent
  • Bodies don’t matter much
  • History is winding down toward evacuation

But when you read Scripture carefully—from Genesis to Revelation—that is not the story you find.

The Bible does not begin with souls in heaven.

It begins with God creating a good world (that’s what He called it) and dwelling with humanity in that world.

And it does not end with humanity leaving creation behind.

It ends with God dwelling with humanity in a renewed creation.

Why This Series Matters

This matters because what you believe about the future shapes how you live in the present.

If your hope is escape, then:

  • the body (the material world) becomes secondary
  • work becomes temporary
  • suffering becomes meaningless
  • creation (the material creation, that is,) becomes disposable

But if your hope is resurrection and new creation, then:

  • bodies matter
  • faithfulness matters
  • justice matters
  • and acts of love are never wasted

Christian hope, rightly understood, is not passive.

It is deeply formative.

What This Series Will Do

In this three-part series, we’ll walk through Scripture with the help of two careful biblical theologians: N. T. Wright (Oxford) and G. K. Beale (Reformed Theological Seminary).

Not because they are novel or trendy, but because they help us see what the Bible has been saying all along.

Here’s where we’re going:

Episode 1

Why “Going to Heaven” Is Not the End of the Story

We’ll clarify the difference between:

  • being with Christ after death
  • and the final Christian hope of resurrection

We’ll see why the New Testament treats resurrection—not heaven—as the centerpiece of Christian expectation.

Episode 2

From Eden to New Jerusalem

We’ll briefly trace the biblical story from the Garden of Eden through Israel’s temple, Jesus himself, and finally Revelation chapters 21 and 22.  It will be a quick study, but I think you will benefit from it.

Along the way, we’ll see that God’s goal (end – telos) has always been:

to dwell with his people in a renewed world.

Episode 3

Resurrection, Renewal, and Living the Future Now

Finally, we’ll explore how this hope reshapes daily life.

What does resurrection mean for:

  • the body?
  • work?
  • suffering?
  • mission?
  • the way Christians face death?

This episode is about living today in light of tomorrow.

The Larger Story of God

If some of this sounds unfamiliar—or even unsettling—that’s okay.

This series isn’t about winning arguments.

It’s about recovering a hope that is:

  • more biblical
  • more embodied
  • more realistic
  • and ultimately more hopeful

The goal is not to discard heaven.

It is to place heaven within the larger story God is telling.

Invitation

The Bible’s final vision is not of souls escaping earth.

It is of:

  • God coming down to dwell with humanity
  • Creation renewed
  • Resurrection completed

That is the hope Christians are invited to live toward.  

And that is the hope this brief series explores.

Thanks for listening.  I hope you’ll join me as we explore why “going to heaven” is not the end of the story.

Podcast Resources

  • N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope
  • N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God
  • G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission
  • G. K. Beale & Mitchell Kim, God Dwells Among Us

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I welcome any questions or comments. [Don’t worry, your personal info will not be given to anyone.] Thanks!

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When Courts Are Asked to Forget Reality

The Supreme Court: By Jesse Collins – CC 3.0

In a healthy constitutional republic, courts interpret laws; they do not redefine reality. Judges are charged with reading legal texts, not resolving questions of basic human biology that ordinary citizens have understood for centuries. Yet our cultural moment has produced an inversion: courts are increasingly asked to decide whether obvious truths about sex still count as truths at all.

That tension was on full display during yesterday’s Supreme Court arguments challenging state laws in West Virginia and Idaho that reserve girls’ and women’s sports for girls and women. These cases are not really about athletics. They are about whether the law must affirm a fiction—namely, that biological sex is either unknowable or irrelevant.

Why Female Sports Exist at All

Sex-segregated sports exist for a reason. Biological differences between males and females are real, measurable, and consequential—especially in competitive athletics, where strength, speed, and endurance matter not only for fairness but also for safety.

Female sports were created precisely because competing against males would disadvantage women and girls. To claim that excluding males from female sports is discriminatory misses the point entirely. The distinction is not arbitrary; it is grounded in biology.

That is why these cases almost always involve males seeking access to female sports rather than the reverse. Males who identify as female are not barred from sports altogether. They are barred from competing as females.

Sex Discrimination—or Biological Reality?

The challengers argue that laws preserving female-only sports constitute unlawful sex discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX. But this argument collapses on contact with reality.

Sex-based distinctions are not inherently unjust. The law has long recognized that some forms of sex discrimination are legitimate when they reflect real biological differences rather than irrational prejudice. This is why sex-based classifications receive less stringent judicial scrutiny than race-based ones. Biology is not bigotry.

Female-only sports discriminate on the basis of sex by design—and rightly so.

The Question That Ends the Debate

During oral arguments, Justice Alito asked the question that cuts through all the legal gymnastics: What does “sex” mean for purposes of equal protection and federal civil rights law? How can courts determine whether discrimination has occurred if they cannot define the category at issue?

The response was astonishing. The challengers conceded that they had no definition. Sex, we were told, has no fixed legal meaning.

That should have ended the case.

When Congress prohibited discrimination “on the basis of sex,” it used a word with a clear, public meaning—one rooted in biology and universally understood when those laws were enacted. If that definition governs, laws protecting female sports are plainly lawful. If federal law is silent, then states are entitled to define sex reasonably for themselves. Either way, a biological definition cannot violate federal law.

The Absurd Alternative

The only alternative offered is worse: a system in which schools must police hormone levels, medical histories, and bodily alterations to determine who qualifies as female enough to compete. Such a regime would be invasive, unworkable, and deeply unjust—especially to girls.

The truth is neither complicated nor cruel. Boys are not girls. Men are not women. A legal system that cannot say so is not advancing equality; it is abandoning reality.

Companion Post

Reality Restored: A Federal Court Upholds the Truth About Sex and the Human Body

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Celebrate God’s Good Creation

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California Court Affirms Parents, Truth, and the Moral Duty to Protect Children

A federal court in California has issued a decisive ruling that cuts through the fog of ideology and reasserts a truth as old as Scripture itself: parents are not optional in the lives of their children. In striking down “gender secrecy” policies in public schools, Judge Roger Benitez affirmed that neither the state nor school bureaucracies have the moral or constitutional authority to hide a child’s struggles from those entrusted by God with their care.

This case also exposes a troubling political and moral contradiction. Rob Bonta, California’s Attorney General—widely seen as positioning himself for a future gubernatorial run—defended these secrecy policies by arguing that parents must be excluded “for the child’s protection.”

The court rejected this premise outright, noting that it presumes parents are the primary threat to their own children.

From a Christian perspective, this logic is deeply inverted. Scripture consistently affirms parents as the primary moral guardians of children, not the state. A government that trains children to withhold intimate truths from their parents is not practicing compassion; it is undermining trust at the most foundational human level.

The irony here is impossible to miss. Progressives rightly condemned the Catholic Church for decades for fostering cultures of secrecy that isolated children from parental protection and allowed harm to flourish. Yet many of those same voices now defend gender secrecy in public schools—policies that likewise instruct children to conceal sensitive information from their parents. Secrecy was once understood as a danger. Now it is celebrated—so long as it serves an ideological end.

Judge Benitez ordered California to include the following statement in all relevant materials:

Parents and guardians have a federal constitutional right to be informed if their public school student child expresses gender incongruence. Teachers and school staff have a federal constitutional right to accurately inform the parent or guardian of their student when the student expresses gender incongruence. These federal constitutional rights are superior to any state or local laws, state or local regulations, or state or local policies to the contrary.

This ruling restores moral clarity. Care for children and respect for parents rise or fall together. When secrecy ends, truth—and genuine protection—can finally begin.  

Companion Post:

Solution: Make Parents Opt-IN to LGBTQ+ Content at School

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