Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

D. A. Carson

Don Carson on Assurance of Salvation

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Six resources by D. A. Carson on assurance of salvation (all available from TGC as PDFs or MP3s):

  1. D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge, Letters Along the Way: A Novel of the Christian Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 1993), 15–25 (letters 2 and 3).
  2. D. A. Carson, “Johannine Perspectives on the Doctrine of Assurance,” Explorations 10 (1996): 59–97.
  3. ———. “Reflections on Christian Assurance,” in Still Sovereign: Contemporary Perspectives on Election, Foreknowledge, and Grace (ed. Thomas R. Schreiner and Bruce A. Ware; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 247–76.
  4. ———. “The Johannine Letters,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (ed. T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner; Downers Grove: IVP, 2000), 351–55.
  5. ———. “The SBJT Forum: Granted that there are spurious conversions in the Bible, what criteria help us to discern that a profession of faith is genuine?” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 5, no. 1 (2001): 78–81.
  6. ———. Five-part sermon series on 1 John.

Carson: The most painful things I’ve ever borne are betrayals by Christian friends

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Here’s how Don Carson recently replied to a question about suffering during a Q&A. (This is a lightly edited transcript from 13:37 to 14:40 in the audio file.)

  • We grew up in some of the suffering of French Canada.
  • I’ve had typhoid because I went to Africa and came within death’s door.
  • I’ve had two or three other diseases that have almost taken me out.
  • My wife’s had cancer that has almost taken her out. She didn’t expect to live to 50; she just turned 59.
  • But that’s part of the stuff of life, isn’t it? And if you’re a Christian leader, then sooner or later you go through situations in churches and relationships that are really tough. The most painful things I’ve ever borne are betrayals by Christian friends.

  • [Read more…] about Carson: The most painful things I’ve ever borne are betrayals by Christian friends

Carson: How Do We Know If God Is Disciplining Us?

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Don Carson answered that question recently for TGC’s blog.

He draws three inferences:

  1. We are likely to make exegetical and theological mistakes when we take any one of these passages and treat it as if it explains all suffering.
  2. In any suffering, or in any other event for that matter, God is doubtless doing many things, perhaps thousands of things, millions of things, even if we can only detect two or three or a handful. [Cf. Piper’s tweet.]
  3. It follows that when we face suffering of any kind, we should use the occasion for self-examination.

Conclusion: “We sometimes observe that hard cases make bad theology. But easy, formulaic answers to questions of suffering are invariably reductionistic — and they make bad theology, too.”

Read the whole thing.

Keller and Carson: Greco-Roman Slavery ≠ Race-Based Slavery

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Many modern readers assume that slavery in the New Testament is equivalent to the race-based slavery of the African slave trade. While not defending the Greco-Roman institution of slavery, Tim Keller and Don Carson explain why it’s important not to equate it with the race-based slavery that we may be more familiar with.

Tim Keller

KellerTimothy Keller, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work (New York: Dutton, 2012), 213–14, 280–83.

Paul is speaking to servants and masters [in Ephesians 6:5–9], and this raises many questions in the minds of modern readers about the Bible’s depiction of the evil of slavery. While much can be said about this subject,* it is important to remember that slavery in the Greco-Roman world was not the same as the New World institution that developed in the wake of the African slave trade. Slavery in Paul’s time was not race-based and was seldom lifelong. It was more like what we would call indentured servitude. But for our purposes, think of this passage as a rhetorical amplifier and consider this: If slave owners are told they must not manage workers in pride and through fear, how much more should this be true of employers today? And if slaves are told it is possible to find satisfaction and meaning in their work, how much more should this be true of workers today? [Read more…] about Keller and Carson: Greco-Roman Slavery ≠ Race-Based Slavery

Don Carson’s Three Secrets of Productivity and Godly Efficiency

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The January 2013 issue of Tabletalk interviews Don Carson. One of the questions is this:

Given the large quantity of high quality of work you are able to produce, what does your average workday and workweek look like?

Don answers (pp. 68–70, numbering and formatting added),

My schedule varies so much from day to day and from week to week that it is difficult to give you a realistic picture. [Read more…] about Don Carson’s Three Secrets of Productivity and Godly Efficiency

Jesus the Son of God: A Christological Title Often Overlooked, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Disputed

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SonThis is D. A. Carson’s latest book:

Jesus the Son of God: A Christological Title Often Overlooked, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Disputed. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012. 128 pp.

This short little book is based on some lectures Carson gave earlier this year. It has three chapters:

  1. “Son of God” as a Christological Title
  2. “Son of God” in Select Passages [Hebrews 1 and John 5:16–30]
  3. “Jesus the Son of God” in Christian and Muslim Contexts

Carson explains in the preface (pp. 11–12),

I chose the topic about three years ago. Some work I had done while teaching the epistle to the Hebrews, especially Hebrews 1 where Jesus is said to be superior to angels because he is the Son, prompted me to think about the topic more globally. Moreover, for some time I have been thinking through the hiatus between careful exegesis and doctrinal formulations. We need both, of course, but unless the latter are finally controlled by the former, and seen to be controlled by the former, both are weakened. The “Son of God” theme has become one of several test cases in my own mind. Since choosing the topic, however, the debates concerning what a faithful translation of “Son of God” might be, especially in contexts where one’s envisioned readers are Muslims, have boiled out of the journals read by Bible translators and into the open. [Read more…] about Jesus the Son of God: A Christological Title Often Overlooked, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Disputed

My Two Favorite Commentaries on 2 Peter and Jude

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I recently worked on a project on 2 Peter and Jude (more on that later), and I read a stack of commentaries from cover to cover (actually, I read a lineup of commentaries in Logos Bible Software from top to bottom). These two served me best:

1. Doug Moo

mooDouglas J. Moo. 2 Peter, Jude.  NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996. 316 pp.

Just outstanding. The NIVAC volumes have three categories in each section: original meaning, building contexts, and contemporary significance. Moo’s exegetical work in the first category is judicious as we’d expect, but what pleasantly surprised me is how edifying the other two categories are. The “contemporary significance” categories at the end of each section are so wise. [Read more…] about My Two Favorite Commentaries on 2 Peter and Jude