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\nI’m A Believer (Diamond) featuring the Mustard Seed Soul Band from the album “Heart and Soul” recorded and produced by Ross Gill<\/p>\nMy daughter\u2019s dog died recently and she is heartbroken. Will we see our pets again in heaven?
\nWe often hear these sorts of questions asked by children, but it\u2019s just as important for many adults who regard pets as part of the family. (as do Caroline and I !)
\nI was interested to read what Tom Wright has to say on the matter. Tom is an English New Testament scholar and Anglican bishop. He was the Bishop of Durham from 2003 to 2010. He writes in \u201cPremier Christian Media\u201d <\/p>\n
First, we need to establish what we mean by \u2018heaven\u2019. There\u2019s a Far Side cartoon that pictures a man sitting on a cloud in heaven, looking bored and thinking: \u201cI wish I\u2019d brought a magazine.\u201d Fortunately, many people are starting to rethink that traditional view. The whole narrative of the Bible reveals that the God who made the world wants to bring heaven and earth together, and to come and live with us in that new creation. That\u2019s not boring!
\nThe point is not to leave this world and go somewhere called heaven. With Jesus, and through his Spirit, heaven has come to earth and we are called to join in the heaven-on-earth project now. But we also look forward to a future resurrection in the ultimate new creation, which is a heaven-and-earth combination, a total transformation of everything.
\nThen there\u2019s the question of whether animals have souls. The idea of the \u2018soul\u2019 as an immaterial \u2018me\u2019 that is separate to the body is a Platonic concept that you don\u2019t find in the New Testament, so none of us has a \u2018soul\u2019 in that sense. When the Bible talks about \u2018the soul\u2019, it refers to the Hebrew word nephesh, which is more like what we would mean by a person or a personality \u2013 the real me.
\nSo, will we see animals and pets in that new creation? The Bible doesn\u2019t have much to say on this, but I think we can carefully respond: \u201cYes.\u201d When a human being loves and cares for an animal, and when that animal responds to that love and care, there is a bond between them, which is part of who that human being is. Just as when somebody loves God, there is a bond between them and God, which we call the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit looks after that person until the resurrection. I don\u2019t see any reason at all why looking after that person shouldn\u2019t include, by a kind of overflow of grace, looking after all of the animals, birds and whatever that person has loved and brought joy to in this life.
\nYou could start the question from the other end and say: \u201cIf God the creator made a world that included giraffes and whales and grasshoppers, and all the other weird and wonderful creatures, is it likely that the new creation would be boring and flat and wouldn\u2019t have any creatures like that in it?\u201d It seems to be far more likely that there will be an abundance of all sorts of creatures being gloriously themselves and sharing in all kinds of relationships with God\u2019s human creatures.
\nAnd in the middle of that, perhaps there will be an older woman who will recognise among the plethora of delighted creatures a dog to whom, as a little girl, she once gave love and companionship and who returned that favour. I don\u2019t see why that shouldn\u2019t be so.
\nI would query some of what Tom Wright asking \u201cWhat happens if the animal(s) in question are not loved\u201d? However, I would love to think that Tom has got it spot on! <\/p>\n
Quote of the week
\nA wise person is someone who thinks twice before saying nothing
\nEdward Heath <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Genna with her friend Scout ( Edward Baker- Duly’s Red Fox Labrador) I’m A Believer (Diamond) featuring the Mustard Seed Soul Band from the album “Heart and Soul” recorded and produced by Ross Gill My daughter\u2019s dog died recently and she is heartbroken. Will we see our pets again in heaven? We often hear these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ken-shearsmiths-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2184,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2181\/revisions\/2184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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