After You Believe

I recently finished N.T. Wright's new book, After You Believe, which I received from The Ooze Viral Bloggers program. This book is a sequel to two of his earlier writings, Simply Christian and Surprised By Hope, and while you do not need to read the earlier books to make sense of this one, I would recommend it because they are good books. On that note I will have to proclaim that I loved this book. I thought that it was really well written and could be easily understood by persons from varying academic levels. There is a tad bit of redundancy, but that did not bother since he is constantly pointing to the theme of his book. I also loved the book for the content of what he had to say. I am currently ministering in a holiness denomination that is very concerned about the transformation that takes place after we come to a belief in Christ. But I feel that Wright's insights in this book can speak to much of the discussion that is currently being held over how holiness is manifested in our lives. I appreciated how he equated the possession of virtue to a habit and how one needs to make conscious decisions based around a virtue until they take hold in our life and become second nature. There is a much larger discussion in the book that I will not get into here.

Another key theme that I loved is how Wright talked about the point of Christian virtue being to show what the Kingdom of God looks like. The end is not in displaying said virtues, but the end is about becoming who we will be for all of eternity. It is about looking forward and not being content with the present and thinking that we have fully arrived. I especially like this since this kind of thinking should prevent us becoming apathetic, which many in my denomination internally struggle.

Lastly, as I usually feel reading one of Wright's book, I'm reminded how little I look at Paul's writing holistically. This is more my own personal issue, but I love how Wright is able to take the full scope of Paul's writing and make it palatable for his readers. I love this approach to scripture, instead of seeing it only through the broken parts (chapters, verses or passages) that I have used in the past. Slowly I am getting there and am thankful for the way that Wright presents this approach through his writing.

Get this book!