Week 1: Introduction — Setting the Stage

1.Wright opens by describing the widespread confusion Christians have about what happens after death. Before reading further, how would you have answered the question: 'What is the Christian hope?' Has your answer ever been tested or questioned?

2.Wright identifies two questions he wants to hold together throughout the book: 'What is the ultimate Christian hope?' and 'What hope is there for the world?' Why does he think these two questions belong together, and what goes wrong when they are separated?

3.Wright argues that most Western Christianity has absorbed a basically Platonic view of the afterlife — souls escaping the body to a spiritual realm — rather than the biblical view. Where do you think this Platonic idea came from? Have you encountered it in hymns, sermons, or funeral services?

4.The book's title, *Surprised by Hope*, echoes C. S. Lewis's *Surprised by Joy*. What does it suggest that hope itself might be surprising? What might we have been expecting instead?

5.Wright says that getting eschatology wrong is not just an intellectual error but has real consequences for how we live and what we do in the world. Can you think of an example — from your own experience or from church culture — where a mistaken view of the future led to a mistaken view of present-day responsibility?

6.Read Revelation 21:1–5 together. How does the vision of the new Jerusalem *coming down* from heaven to earth challenge the popular image of Christians *going up* to heaven? What difference does the direction of movement make?

7.Wright structures the book in three parts: the resurrection of Jesus, the future hope for humans and creation, and the implications for the Church's mission. What connections do you already sense between these three topics, even before reading further?