N.T. Wright's book, Surprised By Hope, has been on my to-read list for a while now, but I have not had the chance to get to it yet. Reading this little bit on another blog today, however, reminded me that I have to move it up the list:

But what we can and must do in the present, if we are obedient to the gospel, if we are following Jesus, and if we are indwelt, energized and directed by the Spirit, is to build for the kingdom. This brings us back to 1 Corinthians 15.58 once more: what you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that's about to fall over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that is shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that is 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 which 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 non-human creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed which spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honoured in the world – all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation which God will one day make. That is the logic of the mission of God. God’s recreation of his wonderful world, which has begun with the resurrection of Jesus and continues mysteriously as God's people live in the risen Christ and in the power of his Spirit, means that what we do in Christ and by the Spirit in the present is not wasted. It will last all the way into God's new world. In fact, it will be enhanced there. I have no idea what precisely this will mean in practice. I am putting up a signpost, not offering a photograph of what we will find when we get to where the signpost is pointing (219-20).

The question of what this looks like in practice – and I think Wright would concur on this point – is one that the church needs to answer, and one to which it must give a great deal of attention. James Davison Hunter, in his recent book, To Change the World, observes, 'Formation – the task of making disciples – is oriented toward the cultivation of faithfulness in the totality of life... Making disciples or formation, then, requires intentionality and it entails the hard work of teaching, training, and cautioning believers with wisdom in the ways of Christ so that they are fit for any calling and any service to him' (227).

Every believer needs to understand that the work they do has meaning and significance. It is in the area of discipleship and formation that this takes place (and thus it is of no surprise that Wright's follow-up book, After You Believe, addresses the cultivation of Christian character). There is much work to be done here, but also a great opportunity for the church to help believers learn to live for the glory of God in all of life.

(HT: Uri Brito)