Book Summary – What If Jesus Was Serious About Heaven?

This book is a visual guide to experiencing God’s Kingdom among us. There are 41 chapters divided into 5 parts. Each chapter is only 2-3 pages. Each chapter has a hand drawn image to describe the concept.

The goal of this book is to help readers shift from a Heaven-Centric faith to a Christ-Centric faith. Jethani isn’t creating something new. Instead, he is going back to The Bible to understand what it really says.

If we are going to be faithful to God, we must ask if our mental map of heaven is grounded in the revelation of Scripture or if it’s mostly the product of cultural cliches and sentimental tradition.

What If Jesus Was Serious About Heaven? page 12

Part 1 – The Kingdom of Heaven has Come Near

Jethani explains how Heaven is not where people go when they die. It a present reality accessible now. There are thin places where Heaven and Earth overlap. Examples are the Temple in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament. Heaven has come near and is available now through Jesus.

The ultimate goal of redemption is the reconciliation of Heaven and Earth, in contrast to humans leaving Earth and going to Heaven.

Part 2 – The Kingdom of Heaven is Like…

Jesus taught about the Kingdom of Heaven using parables. Parables were stories told to teach wisdom and truth. They were not just a list of theological points. Some people reject the good news because they are not acting rationally, or they do not understand the value of what Jesus is offering. Jethani uses the parable of the Great Banquet in Luke 14:15-24 (where all the guests back out of coming to a party so the host invites the poor, crippled, blind, and lame) to teach that it is better to reject God’s Kingdom than pretend to enter it and that we will be surprised by who enters the Kingdom of Heaven. He then ends the section with a brief discussion on the problem of evil.

Part 3 – Your Kingdom Come, Your Will be Done on Earth as it is in Heaven

The next part begins with a discussion of miracles. Miracles restore creation to its proper order. We should expect to see miracles in the Kingdom of Heaven. We need to avoid the extremes of cessationism (miracles can’t happen anymore) and spectacularism (seeking miracles everywhere).

The next several chapters discuss the way this view of the Kingdom of Heaven changes how we think about things. The Kingdom of Heaven is about abundance, not scarcity. Abundance is about God’s will, not consumerism. God’s way is upside down from our modern culture. It is not hurried and the last shall be first. The Kingdom is open to everyone, Jews and Gentiles.

Part 4 – I am Going to Prepare a Place for You

The King James Version translated John 14 as “many mansions” instead of “many rooms”. The idea of mansions and Heaven as paradise can easily mislead us to think about the Kingdom of Heaven as valuable based on materialism and wealth. The values of the Kingdom of Heaven are seen by the death and sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. There are many ways to think about atonement, but regardless of how it works, the outcome is that the enemies of God and individual and systemic evil were all defeated. Those who follow Jesus will spread his Kingdom by bringing Heaven to Earth and demonstrating the way of the cross.

Part 5 – The Kingdom of This World has Become the Kingdom of Our Lord

The consummation of God’s plan is that God will rule with his people in Earth, not in Heaven. Jesus will return and we will receive new bodies, just like Jesus had a new resurrection body. The Earth will be renewed, not replaced. This adds values and worth to all the work we do, not just ministry work.

Heaven-Centric vs Christ-Centric

My top takeaway is the simple terminology Jethani uses to describe his approach compared to the traditional evangelical view. He describes the traditional view as Heaven- centric. The gospel is not about going to Heaven when you die. Having a Christ-centric view is more compelling.

This perspective aligns well with what I wrote in The Gospel – What did Jesus Think He was Doing and The Gospel – Heaven: Redefining Our Perspective of Paradise. You can read these articles for more details.

Heaven and Earth vs Heaven and Hell

The words Heaven and Hell do not occur together in the Bible, but we often view them as connected when we think about God’s plan. We think people either go to Heaven or Hell when they die. Jethani argues that we should actually think more about Heaven and Earth than Heaven and Hell. God’s plan is to bring Heaven and Earth back together. This culminates with Jesus and is available to us here and now.

Consumerism vs The Cross

The gospel has been entwined with many competing values that contaminate the actual good news of Jesus. Politics is probably the top of that list, but consumerism is also high. The prosperity gospel exists in both obvious and subtle forms. Many Americans have a capitalist mindset that values accumulating things and our security comes from our wealth. We believe that God wants to bless us, but we think of blessing in material terms. The truth is that God does want to bless us, but the way of Jesus is the way of the cross.

My Evaluation – What If Jesus Was Serious About Heaven?

The best part of this book is the format. Each chapter has a picture that describes the concept in visual terms. The chapters are only 2-3 pages. Each concept is explained in simple terms that are easy to understand. The concepts themselves are profound and challenging. Concise and profound is a rare combination.

These concepts align well with the teachings of Dallas Willard and The Bible Project, but Jethani is able to boil them down to the essential truths and communicate them for a broader audience. This would be a great tool to use for family devotional times