Raised Forever by Rory Shiner

EQUIP20 Picks - books chosen and reviewed for you by our EQUIP team

Jesus’ resurrection? It is foundational for our Christian faith. We affirm it in our creeds, we sing about it and read about it in the Scriptures. Yet, if I can speak for most Christians, we do not spend much time thinking about it nor know how it all connects to our everyday life. It comes part and parcel when we say that we trust and believe Jesus died for our sins, that he didn’t stay dead but rose from the grave. But when I think about how I share the gospel with other people, I am able to say a lot more about Jesus’ death on the cross than his resurrection.

Raised Forever is a wonderfully thorough yet concise book which takes you through the Bible to think not only about Jesus’ resurrection, but also our own and other issues to do with death and heaven. As the author Rory Shiner puts it, ‘It’s not a book (just) about the resurrection of Jesus… Neither is it a book (just) about what happens when we die… it is a book about what happened to Jesus, what will happen to us, and how those two things connect.’ I like that although Shiner touches upon many different topics, they are clearly explained without being bogged down in details.

The author helps us to think about how different audiences would have received Jesus’ resurrection and how Jesus’ resurrection guarantees our own. I found the last two chapters particularly helpful as the author connected the dots for what that means for us living in our everyday life now. What an encouragement to be reminded that our resurrection hope ‘is something you can take with you into the trenches of daily life.’ I appreciated the image evoked by that word, ‘trenches’! It was such a vivid reminder of the spiritual battlefield we are in!

I would recommend this book to all Christians to think more about the resurrection. It would certainly be a great revision of our conference this year.

The EQUIP20 Picks will be available for a limited time online via our ministry partner, Reformers Bookshop.

http://reformers.com.au/equip?aff=6

A percentage of the sales from books bought via the above link will support our CMS missionary, M.

Meet Carol Chiu

Carol and her husband Jaffe attend St George’s Hurstville Anglican Church. She serves behind the scenes at Equip Women and assists in keeping time and calling the show with an amazing team backstage.