As we seek to share the Good News in our post-Christian context, we need to come to grips with something critical: While we might be using the same vocabulary as the world around us, they are probably using a radically different dictionary. In other words, the words we are using might not mean the same thing to us as they do to the people we are seeking to reach.

This is nowhere clearer than when we contrast our cultural view of heaven with that of the Bible. Our society embraces the idea of heaven. Even ardent non-Christians have a perspective on the afterlife, most of them believing and hoping that some part of us lives on forever. This hope for eternity both opens the door to dialogue and potentially presents a roadblock to understanding. Let’s look at three points of contrast.

#1 – Culture says: “Heaven is a vacation spot.” Christianity says: “Heaven is a vocation spot.”

In the popular imagination, heaven is a place where we will never have to work again—like an eternal retirement community in a tropical resort. Each person will have a mansion, swimming pool, and wish-fulfillment button waiting for them on the other side of the pearly gates. The only barrier between desire and satisfaction will be the limits of our imagination. In the minds of many, heaven might even be a place to enjoy illicit pleasures that were denied to us here on earth. But the key concept is life without labor.

Against this cultural view, Christianity teaches that heaven will be a place of fulfilling productivity where we are given a calling, a vocation. Worship will be the central joy of our work, and all our work will be an act of worship. Scripture depicts eternity as a new earth. Like Adam and Even in the Garden, our role will be to cultivate a redeemed and perfect world. Scripture also describes responsibility and acts of authority for believers. In his book Heaven, Randy Alcorn responds to the question, “Will we work in heaven?” with the following

“Absolutely.” On the New Earth, we’re told “His servants will serve Him,” (Rev. 22:3). Then we’re told “They will reign forever and ever” (Rev. 22:5). Servants work and rulers work. But it will be work that is restful, work without the curse…work more like that done by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

#2 – Culture says: “The path is wide on the way to heaven.” Christianity says: “The path is narrow.”

One of the most closely guarded convictions of our post-Christian culture is the idea that, if there is a heaven, then it is for everyone. Perhaps the only people who would be denied entrance into eternal life are people who believe that some people are denied entrance into eternal life. According to this view, a loving God would never sentence someone to eternal separation.

Interestingly, the people who argue for this point will often point to Jesus as an example of love and tolerance. However, Jesus is the one figure in Scripture who most clearly teaches that our short lives here and now will impact our eternal lives in the hereafter. His words are sobering and stark:

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. (Matthew 7:13-14)