I have been a Christian for 7 years. When I first stood up at a youth retreat when I was 14 to "commit my life to Christ" (as those of us in the "we're charismatic Baptists but we don't like labels" camp liked to say), I had little sense of what that actually meant in the long term. But what I did know was that the Jesus whom I had met over the previous year in the pages of the Gospel of Matthew was calling me to a radically different way of life and being. Under the guidance of the Spirit, I began to follow this Jesus and, ever so slowly, I began to imitate him. But I had little sense of why the way of Jesus was this way and not another. I knew only that he was Jesus, that he loved me, and that I was to obey him.

But I also knew that that couldn’t be it. I had always been troubled by the vision of the Christian life preached to me of “soul-winning”- if all we are to do is “win souls”, and the purpose of those “won souls” is to go on and win more souls, what’s the ultimate purpose of it all? What will we do once all those souls have been won? Are we really going to enjoy sitting on a cloud as disembodied spirits singing songs to God forever? I knew I was supposed to be excited about that, but frankly it just seemed boring.

All that began to change when I entered college and joined a campus ministry run by the Coalition for Christian Outreach. For the first time, I was surrounded and taught by Christians who had a strong sense of eschatological purpose that was driven not by dualist escapism, but by a vision of God’s plan in both creation and redemption. I came to understand that our lives in the present are governed both by the original vision of the Creator in Eden in the past and by Christ’s return to judge humanity and restore and remake all things in the future. This vision has been shaped in me primarily through the books I have read over the last three years, and no author has been more influential in this than N.T. Wright.

I had already been exposed to these truths my freshman year through talks at my campus ministry, Sunday sermons, the Jubilee Conference, and some entry-level reading. But it was reading Wright’s "Surprised by Hope" my sophomore year that gave me my first thorough Biblical examination of the doctrine of the resurrection. I remember starting the book rather unenthusiastically, daunted by the prospect of really thinking about death and feeling fuzzy on the whole concept of future resurrection. By the time I finished, I found myself indeed surprised by the hope of the resurrection.

The summer after junior year, I found myself reading another Wright book entitled "After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters". Wright’s basic thesis is that the Christian life is best understood neither as a matter of rules, good and helpful as they may be, nor as authenticity to one’s self in the modern sense. Instead, it's about character. In Wright’s understanding, Christians learn how to behave through the cultivation of virtue. He is here evoking the classical tradition and Aristotle’s concept of aretē, known to Latin writers as virtus.

This is formed by the consistent, day-to-day choices a person makes, and in the long term, it sets the way a person will respond in situations for which they have not specifically prepared.

These virtues are cultivated with a particular telos, or goal, in view. The key differences between the pagan conception of virtue and that of the New Testament are a) their ultimate vision of human flourishing, b) which virtues they aim to cultivate, and c) how they go about cultivating these virtues. The key point here is that Christian character “doesn’t come by accident. It comes through the self-discipline required to do anything in life really well- to learn a musical instrument, to mend a tractor, to give a lecture, to run an orphanage. Or, indeed, to live as a wise human being” (Wright 2012:23).

So press on towards that goal. Leave behind all that unbiblical talk of saving souls from the earth to snatch away into heaven, and exchange it for a life lived towards the resurrection and the restoration of all things. Trust me. It's worth it.