Recommended Heaven by Randy C. Alcorn

The next time you hear someone say, “We can't begin to imagine what Heaven will be like,” you'll be able to tell them, “I can.”

-- from the back cover of Heaven by Randy Alcorn

In setting the stage for a deep theology of Heaven, then further thrilling studies — and some conjecture — about what it will be like in this incredible realm, Alcorn realizes many will think, Well, what about 1 Corinthians 2:9?

[A]s it is written:
“No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him”

1 Corinthians 2:9 (NIV)

For this, Alcorn highly recommends reading on to verse 10:

— but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

1 Corinthians 2:10 (NIV)

It seems the ESV translates it more effectively:

[A]s it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”--

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

1 Corinthians 2: 9-13 (ESV)

“The context makes it clear that this revelation is God's Word (v. 13), which tells us what God has prepared for us,” Alcorn writes (page 19). “After reading a few dozen books about Heaven, I came to instinctively cringe whenever I saw 1 Corinthians 2:9. It's a wonderful verse; it's just that it's nearly always misused. It says precisely the opposite of what it's cited to prove!”

Another highly popular Biblical myth-conception, debunked — I just love it when that happens. Clearly, Heaven will imbue things that are wildly beyond our imaginations, but that doesn't at all mean it will be so otherworldly that it resembles nothing on Earth. Satan wants to get us thinking that way about death, Alcorn writes — so much so that even many Christians are either fearful about or bored with the idea of the splendors of the after-world!