OK, so in the Midday Office yesterday, I came across this reading:
Our homeland is in heaven and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
~Philippians 3
I’d always read these words like this: While on earth the church is away from home, and Jesus, who’s back home in heaven, is coming back to the world at some point. A perfectly reasonable reading, I’m sure.
But for some reason, my brain turned the whole thing upside down this time: The church only seems to be living in the world; in reality the church is living in heaven, the Kingdom of God come to earth; and it is from the Kingdom that the church awaits Jesus’ return.
The difference between the two interpretations seems pretty significant to me. I ran through a bunch of translations, and they either favor the former reading, or are ambiguous. (The skeptic in me notes that a futurist approach with a literal heaven and hell has been the dominant model during the period when most translations were commissioned; I wouldn’t expect to find something contradictory to that.
Context isn’t helping me either.
So, here’s my question for you NT scholars: Am I totally off base with this second interpretation?