The 3 BEST Books about Eternity – #3 – Heaven, by Randy Alcorn

[0:00] i've read hundreds of books on theology on heaven on the new creation on eternity and someone in the comments recently just asked me what are my top three and oh my gosh that was so hard it was so hard but i did it i've come today with my top three books on eternity i'm not gonna say heaven you're gonna find out why in just a minute hey welcome back to the channel if you're new here my name is tim i'm a pastor author and entrepreneur and on this channel we explore how to rethink every second of our lives in light of what the bible really says about our eternal state and if you're anything like me and you're interested in eschatology good christian theology serious bible study then you're in the right place i'm going to bring it in starting with number three now number three is

[0:48] heaven by randy alcorn um this book is long it's like 560 pages um before i dive into why i like this book this is the book i think that best illustrates the problem uh let me explain what i mean by that there's a problem in christianity where there is a ton of confusion about what we think the eternal state is is it heaven is it new heavens and new earth is it just the earth is it disembodied or do we have physical bodies are we going to be singing and wearing white robes or is there more to it and the bible really doesn't give you a whole lot about what heaven looks like because that's the place that you go now if you die you'll be in the presence of

[1:37] the lord right to be absent from the body is to be present with the lord but that's not the end of the story the end of the story you can find on the last two chapters of the bible and sprinkled throughout in visions and prophecies and it's described as the new heavens in the new earth if you go to revelation 21 and 22 you what you do not have is all of the saved people going up to heaven to be with god forever you have the heavenly jerusalem coming down like a bride prepared for her husband and now god's dwelling places with the people and he's recreated the world the way that he promised to and say romans 8 isaiah 65 all of these other passages so that's a fundamental confusion from a lot of people if you read any of the negative reviews this book has almost purely five star reviews but if you go read the one star reviews they're like this book is says it's about heaven but

[2:24] it's not about heaven uh this is all speculation he's saying you know we're gonna be in bodies and stuff and how do we know that well read the bible so randy alcorn is a really wonderful author he put so much effort into this and you can see the subtitle says clear answers to 44 real questions about the afterlife angels resurrection and the kingdom of god and i love that he took this approach that's part of what makes this book so valuable is that these are real questions he's a pastor um and an author these are real questions people have asked him about heaven you know he he does he does funerals and he has to answer questions from the people who come to attend the funeral and they they trust him to give uh solid answers um it's it's long-winded again

[3:11] 560-something pages but it's incredible uh the the the the exercise is speculative all of this is speculative but it's not speculative without some background and that's i think a really important distinction a lot of people will say like well how do you know that well you only know that because you're following the train of thought that the the scriptures themselves give you the prophets themselves um you're following the the train of thought that was started in genesis one and two and you're following it all the way through to revelation 21 and 22 which those two chapters those four chapters the first two and the last two look really really similar um so it's it's god dwelling with his people in a remade earth where there is no sin or evil or brokenness anywhere and he's connecting humanity again to

[4:01] what the original plan was which is to rule and reign alongside him as his chosen people um taking the world someplace beautiful right it's that cultural mandate from genesis 1 and 2. so i love that he answers questions like what will we do every day uh will there be sports will there be coffee well probably yeah it's you just take all the best things about our existence now and then you you improve them beyond anything you could possibly imagine in the presence of god and all of his people where there's no sin and brokenness anywhere so i really love heaven for that for that reason i do dislike that the title is deceptively named because he isn't discussing heaven per se so much as he is the new creation the new heavens and

[4:49] the new earth but if you can get past that little that little quibble and you've got a lot of time on your hands to go through 560 pages worth of work it is an excellent excellent book number two on my list is surprised by hope it was very hard for me to put this one second i on a different day i might have put this one in the number one spot surprise by hope is incredible it's a lot less long-winded at only 352 pages but those are some dense 352 pages the amount of information that tom wright crams into those 350 pages could fill a thousand page book um but in his signature way it's very academic it's very dense uh it is intense and difficult to read you might need to give it a couple of shots a

[5:38] couple of um passes through before it really soaks in and you're able to absorb all that he put in the book because it is dense um he does a very good job again if you read the subtitle i like that these are very these are very helpful subtitles it says rethinking heaven the resurrection and the mission of the church that is exactly right he's discussing okay if heaven wore the eternal state that would change how we think about what we're doing now if what we're all headed for is disembodied floating up in the sky and singing forever then what we do really doesn't matter here and now since that is not the case since eternity is actually embodied physicality overlapping with the heavens of god and the earth which is human space and

[6:26] that's the end goal and that began that began 2000 years ago in jesus and it's in the process of moving ever closer and closer as paul says in ephesians 1 uniting god's plan is uniting all things in heaven and on earth in christ that is his plan for the fullness of times since that's what we're all heading toward what we do now matters a lot it matters a lot and we need to change it in order to better fit that vision meaning we can't just do whatever we want to the environment we can't just do whatever we want to our bodies we can't just do whatever we want uh to our to each other um the way that we go about our daily life needs to change to better fit that narrative and that means that the way that we do

[7:14] church needs to change the way that we understand what the church is here for needs to change again it is dense but it is incredible and it was very difficult for me to put this at number two i i got the kindle version and the audible version and i listened to them both i listened to the audible version at two and a half times speed and blew through the kindle version in a couple of hours so that i could get the big picture the overview first the gestalt overview first and then went back through it lovingly and i recommend that same process to you incredible but definitely don't uh don't read it lightly it takes it takes quite a bit of work number one for me and again on a different day this might be number two but number one for me is all things new by john eldridge this is

[8:03] the only one for which i have a physical copy um the other ones i read on kindle this book absolutely just ripped my heart open for the new creation um it was the first one that i read before before i read all things new i had kind of the same vaguely christian view that everybody else holds i can't say everybody else that's not fair but that most other you know evangelical protestant christians hold which is uh you know when we die we go to heaven to be with the lord forever and you know there might be like a rapture where everybody's taken off the earth and taken up to heaven we'll have more conversations about that on another day um but that was my view that was the the view that i held and this book just absolutely smashed it

[8:50] to pieces um it uses scripture judiciously uh it's not as scripture heavy as the other two but the scriptures that it does choose are so clear and so indicative that and they make the case so clearly that he he focuses on the clear case that scripture makes and then he focuses a lot on the implications and really teasing out the beauty of the implications of the fact that our future is eternally embodied so i i can't recommend it anymore highly it is emotional um it's beautiful it depicts real life situations of hopelessness and despair and pain it also depicts real life situations of experiencing something of the presence of god when you are

[9:39] thinking about his plan to restore everything it teases out in very minute detail um what will we be doing um what will how will the rewards process happen um what does god do with evil um how do we you know will we know each other in heaven will we recognize each other with a liberal sprinkling of lord of the rings quotes and chronicles of narnia citations as well if that's your cup of tea for me it certainly was it is so real it is so raw it's so intense and it's so emotional uh and it's a quick read it's only 240 pages so if you are looking for an entry point if this is totally new to you you've never heard of this way of talking about heaven before i can't recommend any book more highly than this

[10:28] one you can see right now it's at a crazy crazy kindle deal if you're a kindle person um as of today it is only three dollars on kindle uh it's it's worth 30 dollars it's worth 300 i would pay that much to get the information that i i gleaned out of this book i can't recommend it any more highly but as a bonus uh those are my top three uh in order maybe ask me again in a year and the numbers will change but my bonus would be the book that i wrote i wrote this book called the overlap life rethinking every second of your life in light of eternity and i wanted to fill in what i saw as a gap in the market let's say of these kinds of books i think that all of them touch on certain really important subject matter but one thing that really

[11:16] was lacking was how does our life change now what do we really need to be doing differently now in exhaustive detail um how how do our lives need to look now that we are on this continuous story between genesis 1 and 2 adam and eve in the garden before sin ruling and reigning over the universe that god created with him as our leader and our guide versus now the end of the story is once again heaven and earth overlapping humans again ruling and reigning with god and we have now been plugged into that story on a timeline because we are in christ because we have been made new creatures now we are living out that story and that is the direction we're heading so what needs to change about our rest how do we need to understand what we do for work how do our relationships need to

[12:04] change what is the church for now on on this side of that story in this age while we prepare prepare for the age to come so i can recommend that one too i wrote that book for me five years ago and so um it was it was tremendously helpful for me to have so much uh mentorship from randy alcorn from nt wright from john eldridge from um gregory beale gk beal who wrote this incredible uh revelation commentary that's like 1100 pages long and i poured the best of everything that i could find and my own understanding of the relevant scriptures into this book and i poured my heart and soul into it so if you are interested you can also grab a copy of that and if you're new to this way of talking about eternity if this is totally new to you uh welcome to my channel i'm really glad that

[12:51] you're here we um you would really enjoy i think i've got a playlist ready for you over here if you check the top right of your screen uh it's brand new for brand new viewers it would i think it would be a huge blessing for you to catch up to speed quickly as always if you're trying to dive deeper you can again once again visit my website theoverlap.life where you can buy my book join one of our challenges ask us a question or even get one-on-one coaching but honestly right now if you're trying to learn about the new creation then i've got a video or a playlist rather right up here just for you brand new for new new channel visitors so thanks for everything guys further up and further in