D. A. Carson, “On Drawing Lines, When Drawing Lines Is Rude,” ch. 8 in The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism 
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 347–67 (numbering added):
[The point of this chapter is] to ponder briefly some of the reasons why drawing lines is utterly crucial at the moment.
- Truth demands it.
- The distinction between orthodoxy and heresy models it.
- The plurality of errors calls for it.
- The entailments of the gospel confront our culture—and must be lived out.
John Piper and D. A. Carson teamed up on April 23, 2009 to address “The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor.”
(I live-blogged the event, and audio, video, and manuscripts are available.)
Now it’s been updated as a 124-page book:
John Piper and D. A. Carson. The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor: Reflections on Life and Ministry. Edited by Owen Strachan and David Mathis. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011.
Keith Getty, “Leading Corporate Worship Music,” a workshop at The Gospel Coalition’s national conference on April 13, 2011, 56:30–59:03:
If our musical understanding is built out of only contemporary music, we are to a large degree foolish people for three main reasons:
- We have such a rich history to tap into. The history of hymnody is dominated by some of the greatest composers in history. It is dominated by some of the greatest poets in history. It is dominated by some of the most brilliant theologians crafting liturgy over hundreds of years. It is dominated by some of the most dramatic conversions and historical moments that shaped countries and nations and cultures. For us to turn out backs to that and say that we here in Illinois today in our room know better and don’t need to learn from them is silly. So there is a richness for us to learn from.
(Tim Keller mentions it in his article on worship in Worship by the Book
- I think it’s just good to do some of it sometimes. It’s just good stuff. It’s good to use. . . . There is no way to satisfy everybody’s musical tastes. But we do have a job to feed our congregations. So we start from there and not from musical tastes and know that we’re part of a rich history.
Related: Don Carson’s introductory essay in the above book is available for free as a PDF:
D. A. Carson, “Worship under the Word.” Page 11–63 in Worship by the Book. Edited by D. A. Carson. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002.
Some of Don Carson‘s friends surprised him with a gift on April 12 at The Gospel Coalition’s conference:
Andreas J. Köstenberger and Robert W. Yarbrough, eds. Understanding the Times: New Testament Studies in the 21st Century; Essays in Honor of D. A. Carson at the Occasion of His 65th Birthday. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011. 400 pp.
“The editors and contributors to this volume join in expressing our profound gratitude to you, Don, for your tireless work in God’s kingdom and for your immeasurable impact on the church and on all of us” (p. 11).
Here’s the table of contents:
Why does The Gospel Coalition’s Confessional Statement begin with God instead of Scripture or epistemology?
D. A. Carson (who drafted the statement) and Tim Keller explain in Gospel-Centered Ministry 
(The Gospel Coalition Booklets; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), p. 6:
We also thought it was important to begin our confession with God rather than with Scripture. This is significant. The Enlightenment was overconfident about human rationality. Some strands of it assumed it was possible to build systems of thought on unassailable foundations that could be absolutely certain to unaided human reason. Despite their frequent vilification of the Enlightenment, many conservative evangelicals have nevertheless been shaped by it. This can be seen in how many evangelical statements of faith start with the Scripture, not with God. They proceed from Scripture to doctrine through rigorous exegesis in order to build (what they consider) an absolutely sure, guaranteed-true-to-Scripture theology.
The problem is that this is essentially a foundationalist approach to knowledge. It ignores the degree to which our cultural location affects our interpretation of the Bible, and it assumes a very rigid subject-object distinction. It ignores historical theology, philosophy, and cultural reflection. Starting with the Scripture leads readers to the overconfidence that their exegesis of biblical texts has produced a system of perfect doctrinal truth. This can create pride and rigidity because it may not sufficiently acknowledge the fallenness of human reason.
We believe it is best to start with God, to declare (with John Calvin, Institutes 1.1) that without knowledge of God we cannot know ourselves, our world, or anything else. If there is no God, we would have no reason to trust our reason.
D. A. Carson, Holy Sonnets of the Twentieth Century 
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 117 (reflecting on Rev 14:9–11; 21:8):
There are no friends in hell: the residents
With zeal display self-love’s destructive art
In narcissistic rage. The better part,
The milk of human kindness, no defense
Against a graceless world, robbed of pretense,
Decays and burns away. To have a heart
Whose every beat demands that God depart—
This is both final curse and gross offense.
Say not that metaphor’s inadequate,
A fearful mask that hides a lake less grim:
Relentless, pain-streaked language seeks to cut
A swath to bleak despair, devoid of him.
This second death’s a wretched, endless thing,
Eternal winter with no hope of spring.
John Piper, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 79:
What does it mean to love God “with all your mind” [Matt 22:37]? I take it to mean that we direct our thinking in a certain way; namely, our thinking should be wholly engaged to do all it can to awaken and express the heartfelt fullness of treasuring God above all things.
Chapter 6 (pp. 79–88) unpacks that definition.
Piper has thought about that definition for a long time. As recently as the mid-1990s, he told Don Carson that he wasn’t sure what it means to love God with your mind.
Cf. D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 484:
Noll and others often cite Jesus’ injunction to love the Lord your God your God “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30) as if that justifies all intellectual effort expended by a Christian. John Piper, in a private conversation, thoughtfully commented that he was unsure what the passage means: What precisely does it mean to love God with one’s mind? It is not obvious. This is not the place to embark on a full-scale exegesis. Remembering, however, that the “heart” in biblical thought is not so much the seat of the emotions as the seat of thought and of the whole person, both “loving God with your heart” and “loving God with your mind” are bound up with thinking the right things about God. They cannot simply be equated with all intellectual endeavor undertaken by a Christian, even though such endeavor must be undertaken coram Deo. But whatever the full sweep of this injunction, it cannot mean less than a God-inspired delight in all of God’s thoughts insofar as he has disclosed them, and a God-given determination to dethrone all competing systems of thought and bring them into captivity to the gospel (cf. 2 Cor. 10:5). And that requires constant, thoughtful Bible reading, theological reflection, interaction with Christian thinkers from the past, humble assessment of the currents of our age and courageous determination not to become their slave.
It is precisely here, I fear, that many evangelical intellectuals have failed.
D. A. Carson, Love in Hard Places 
(Wheaton: Crossway, 2002), pp. 52–57 (numbering added):
Not all Christians face persecuting enemies, but all Christians face little enemies. We encounter people whose personality we intensely dislike—
- an obstreperous deacon or warden or bishop;
- a truly revolting relative;
- an employee or employer who specializes in insensitivity, rudeness, and general arrogance;
- a business competitor more unscrupulous, not to say more profitable, than you are;
- the teenager whose boorishness is exceeded only by his or her unkemptness;
- the elderly duffers who persist in making the same querulous demands whenever you are in a hurry;
- the teachers who are so intoxicated by their own learning that they forget they are first of all called to teach students, not a subject;
- the students so impressed by their own ability or (if they come from certain cultures) so terrified by the shame of a low grade that they whine and wheedle for an “A” they have not earned;
- people with whom you have differed on some point of principle who take all differences in a deeply personal way and who nurture bitterness for decades, stroking their own self-righteousness and offended egos as they go;
- insecure little people who resent and try to tear down those who are even marginally more competent than they;
- the many who lust for power and call it principle;
- the arrogant who are convinced of their own brilliance and of the stupidity of everyone else.
The list is easily enlarged. [Read more…] about Loving People You Don’t Like
