Book Recommendation: A "Novel" by Carson and Woodbridge

Last night my wife, Jenni, and I finished reading Letters Along the Way: A Novel of the Christian Life by D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge. (Be sure to check out the amazon.com feature that allows you to search inside this book.)

We really enjoyed reading it, and I highly recommend it! A “novel” (i.e., “a fictitious prose narrative of book length,” OED) is a genre that I haven’t read much of recently, but this isn’t your typical novel. It’s the compilation of (fictitious) correspondence between two people: Dr. Paul Woodson (i.e., WOODbridge + CarSON) and Timothy Journeyman. Professor Woodson is a professor of systematic theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and Tim spends part of the book as a student in college and seminary and part of it as a rookie pastor. Tim perennially asks for advice, and Woodson shares his wisdom on all kinds of issues, including assurance of salvation, perseverance, campus evangelism, evangelical seminaries, evangelicalism, foreign politics, marriage, psychology, spiritual formation while in seminary, pastoring, and much more. Reading these made-up letters is almost as personal as if you wrote the question to Drs. Carson and Woodbridge themselves and then received a thoughtful reply.

This is not a heavyweight theological tome. It’s light reading. Jenni would usually read it out loud (to give my eyes a break from reading print and electronic resources all day) while cleaning up after dinner or lying down just before retiring. We’re kind of sad that the book is over, but it was a thoroughly edifying adventure.