“Related to the finitude of our knowledge is our continued growth in it. What we know and experience in the eternal state will not be static but ever increasing. As created and therefore finite beings, we are mutable. This means that we are subject to change. Change, however, is not necessarily a bad thing if the direction in which we are changing is for the better. As we grow, we develop, enlarge, and actualize our capacities for enjoying God and his creation—from “glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:18, KJV)”

Some Christians think our future life will be rather static – and perhaps even boring. They think we will be ‘perfect’ – whatever that means – so we will not be making any advances or developing in any way. But Scripture does not speak that way about the next life.
Yes, in some things there will be no change – for example we will not be sinning there. So that is something we can count on as not changing but remaining the same. But as I said in a previous piece, getting into heaven – or more precisely, the new earth – will not make us godlike: we will not all of a sudden become omniscient and the like.
So there will be a real place to grow, to develop, to expand in so many ways, including intellectually. We will be learning new things. We will develop in our minds. I spoke to this somewhat in the earlier piece I just mentioned: billmuehlenberg.com/2022/07/20/will-there-be-art-galleries-in-heaven-christianity-culture-and-eschatology/
In that piece I spoke about cultural pursuits and even artistic endeavours taking place in the next world. Here I want to develop all this further, especially looking at things like the mind, learning, and perhaps even reading and writing. Yes I know, my love of books is showing here, but I think a case can be made for what follows.
As I said in that previous piece, there is admittedly a fair amount of speculation here. We do not have a heap of detail as to what life in the next world will be like, but we can consider it, based on what we do know about life in this world, and God’s original intentions when he first created man. Part of this I already discussed in my piece on the cultural mandate: billmuehlenberg.com/2022/07/19/on-the-cultural-mandate/
Let me feature a few writers on this topic, firstly by looking at the slightly broader issue of thinking of heaven as a boring, static place where nothing new ever transpires. In his book 10 Mistakes People Make About Heaven, Hell and the Afterlife Mike Fabarez discusses this matter:
If your unspoken aversion to thinking about the afterlife is prompted by this concern, allow me to relieve your fears. Even in this life, the exaltation of God is not confined to the singing of worship songs. The Bible says that you can and should seek to glorify God even when you are having dinner (1 Corinthians 10:31). In your daily tasks and at your place of employment, the Bible says you are to be engaged in consciously and joyfully serving Christ no matter what your job title might be….
If every task in heaven wherein you could engage your creativity, apply your wisdom, and purpose your mind to work had no pain, frustration, or disappointment associated with it, I’m assuming you would rethink your ambition of lounging in a hammock for eternity.
As to the issue of learning and the like in the next life, let me start with some thoughts from Alan Gomes and his very useful book, 40 Questions About Heaven and Hell. As to my point about us not being omniscient in heaven, he quotes W. G. T. Shedd:
“We are not to understand that the creature’s knowledge, in the future state, will be as extensive as that of the Omniscient One; or that it will be as profound and exhaustive as His. The infinitude of things can be known only by the Infinite Mind.” Gomes then says this:
Related to the finitude of our knowledge is our continued growth in it. What we know and experience in the eternal state will not be static but ever increasing. 
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Is the word defined by the “winsomer” or the “winsomee”? And Christians, well-meaning Christians, who want to be viewed as winsome in the public square, and are reading through their notes carefully before they go up to the public podium, are finding that their problem is not in their delivery, it’s not in their word choice, it’s not even in their body language. No, it’s in their actual beliefs. The problem is that the Christian perspective on marriage is viewed as hateful. And our winsomeness is being viewed as a mask, a get-out-of-jail-free card for ideas that should be banged up in solitary confinement.
 
So here’s me choosing my Christian Word Of The Year.
Drum roll please, “The Christian word of the year is WINSOME!” Taa-dah!
That’s right, winsome! It’s everywhere you look at the moment. So please step forward “winsome” and take a bow. You’ve been over-used, over-realised, under-appreciated, over-stated, undered and overed, and whatever else can happen to a poor old lonesome winsome word in these topsy turvy times.
The big take away for 2022 is how Christians can engage in the public square in a way that is winsome. And if that is even possible. And of course the big question: Is winsome a strategy or a stance? We haven’t decided yet. We haven’t decided what winsome actually means. Does it mean speaking the truth in love? And when we’re told that certain truths that Christians hold can’t be loving in the first place, then we’re being told that we’re masking hate in love language. Where does winsome land in all of that?
As the culture wars roll on, (and on and on) and Christians find themselves in the firing line on ethical matters, is winsome is our ticket out of this? That’s a great question to ask, if only we could decide what winsome actually looks like.
So exhibit A was a great article I read in the New York Times last week by an orthodox Anglican priest in the US, Tish Harrison Warren, who called for respect from both sides of the marriage debate in the US. It was a thoughtful piece from a woman who is very clear about her view that marriage is between a man and a woman, God ordained, and unchangeable in bedrock definition irrespective of government intervention.
Yet at the same time she explored that because the law of the land has changed the definition of marriage legally, then both sides in this issue must find a way to get along with living side by side and respect each other’s differences. Without that ability then it’s going to be tricky to live in the same nation, let alone suburb, with those we deeply disagree with.
She told the story of her gay friend and his “husband” and her hope that he would support her religious school’s right to promote its view of marriage without fear of funding loss, just as she recognised but did not agree with him. He laughed and said, yes. I thought it was a useful article given the times we live in.
Tish Harrison Warren seems an impressive woman. As an egalitarian in the church she even recognises and affirms complementarians and refuses the trope (sadly even found increasingly among brothers and sisters in Christ) that it’s simply a mask for patriarchy. She states this:
Pluralism is not the same as relativism — we don’t have to pretend that there is no right or wrong or that beliefs don’t matter. It is instead a commitment to form a society where individuals and groups who hold profoundly different and mutually opposed beliefs are welcome at the table of public life. It is rooted in love of neighbour and asks us to extend the same freedoms to others that we ourselves want to enjoy. Without a commitment to pluralism, we are left with a society that either forces conformity or splinters and falls apart.
It was a totally winsome article from a woman who holds to a biblical orthodox view of marriage, but who is not looking for some sort of Christian nationalism that will enforce that view on everyone else. She’s nothing if not a realist. And nothing if not winsome.
And what was the response in the comments section of The New York Times? She was shredded. Absolutely shredded. Here I was thinking, “Wow, that’s the type of response we should be able to articulate, and that’s the way we should articulate it” and the general tenor of the comments was along the lines of “bigot, hypocrite, liar, abuser”, etc, etc, etc, including “equivalent of Jim Crow racist”.
Now granted it is The New York Times, which wouldn’t recognised a Hunter Biden laptop if it tripped over it. But winsome went right to the source, with a piece that was as Winsome McWinsomeface as you could get, and still the vast bulk of well over one thousand comments were in the “shred” category.
Which is all a way of saying, if we’re going to have a conversation around winsome (and something tells me it may well be word of the year for Christians in 2023, cos this debate is only getting started), then we’d better have a clear understanding of what we mean by winsome. And by that I mean determining who gets to define whether we are being winsome or not.
That’s the point isn’t it? Is the word defined by the “winsomer” or the “winsomee”? And Christians, well-meaning Christians, who want to be viewed as winsome in the public square, and are reading through their notes carefully before they go up to the public podium, are finding that their problem is not in their delivery, it’s not in their word choice, it’s not even in their body language. No, it’s in their actual beliefs.
The problem is that the Christian perspective on marriage is viewed as hateful. And our winsomeness is being viewed as a mask, a get-out-of-jail-free card for ideas that should be banged up in solitary confinement. That’s the problem right there. And the more words you say, words like “love”, “tolerance”, “acceptance”, “pluralism” are simply seen as special pleading. They are being used by the losers in the culture war to try and carve out a city of refuge to which they can flee for safety.
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Since the Bible is the very words of God (it doesn’t merely contain the word of God), it comes to us with the authority of its primary author, God himself. Those for whom the book of the Bible are named, tell us that Bible is God’s word written, and that it must be seen as divine speech given through human agency. And this speech instructs, corrects, and trains us in righteousness, because it repeatedly points us to its central character, Jesus, the Son of God who came to save us from our sin.

In Genesis 1:1 we read “in the beginning was God.” Echoing the opening declaration of the Bible, in John 1:1 we read that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” But John goes on to say “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The fact that God chose to reveal himself in the person of Jesus Christ (the eternal word made flesh) brings us to the subject of the inspiration and authority of the Bible. This is where God primarily chooses to reveal himself and his purposes to his people—in a collection of sixty-six written books which tell the story of God’s mighty deeds and words of explanation, all of which point to Jesus, the Word made flesh.
The Bible never claims to be an “inspirational” book which grants its reader greater spiritual insight or self-enlightenment. The Bible was not given to motivate us to live better lives, or to do great things. The Bible is given to us by God as a testimony to the Word made flesh (Jesus), who came to save us from our sins. This is what the various human writers of the Bible say about the Bible itself. What kind of book is it? What do they testify about it?
Paul says in his second letter to Timothy that “all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” Although the term “inspiration of Scripture” is often used to describe God’s revelation of himself to us in written form, modern translations of the Bible (such as the ESV) correctly note that the word which the King James Version famously translated as “inspired” (theopneustos) is better translated as “breathed out” by God.
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