The mis-selling of a triumphalist Christianity

As I reflect on Carson's exposition on Pages 31-2, my heart breaks at how we have been m mis-selling Christianity to attract people to follow Christ and how far removed it has been removed from denying ourselves, taking up our cross and following him. If the premise at which one decides to become saved is to be as successful and high flying as a prominent Christian personality, then I am overwhelmed with worry at how such a believer will respond during times of trial and suffering. I shudder at this thought because I, once upon a time too, believed in a prosperity theology whereby my religion gave me the right to demand (through prayer) what God needed to give me or come through for me.

Oh Lord, forgive me for wrongfully presenting your gospel and making false promises to seekers on your behalf. Help us believers to communicate the perseverance and joy of submitting our wills to you, and to winsomely communicate a faithful understanding of how we relate to you to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Help us to love, minister to and journey with those of more humble and more elite backgrounds as us, and that we may point them to follow you, for the glory and praise of Jesus Christ I pray, amen!

The Cross and Christian Ministry

The Cross and Christian Ministry has 907 ratings and 73 reviews. Jordan said: Carson would say I totally missed the point of chapter three when I say I w...

This is a point that our generation cannot afford to ignore. Why is it that we constantly parade Christian athletes, media personalities, and pop singers? Why should we think that their opinions or their experiences of grace are of any more significance than those of any other believer? When we tell outsiders about people in our church, do we instantly think of the despised and the lowly who have become Christians, or do we love to impress people with the importance of the men and women who have become Christians? Modern Western evangelicalism is deeply infected with the virus of triumphalism, and the resulting illness destroys humility, minimizes grace, and offers far too much homage to the money and influence and "wisdom" of our day.

Review: The Cross and Christian Ministry: Leadership Lessons from 1 Corinthians

The Cross and Christian Ministry: Leadership Lessons from 1 Corinthians by D.A. Carson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Don Carson is my go-to guy when I'm looking to purchase NT commentaries (I consult his New Testament Commentary Survey) and I also enjoy listening to his expositional sermons. But why does this fanboy not give a 5 star rating? In short, the book was great but not exceptional.

While overall the content is classic Carson - relatively easy to follow, engaging, faithful to Scripture, thoroughly insightful and the stories/background explanations being ever so apt to illustrate archaic concepts - I felt that it would have been great for him to revise the content slightly. Being first published in 1993, the 2018 edition comes with a new cover but identical content. Carson would probably have been able to update a couple of illustrations or beef up the material with new nuggets of insight or a varied explanation to which he has since picked up... The lack of pictorial graphics or diagrams also make it a slight challenge to read for today's attention deficit readers.

The bite-sized expositions are still a great resource for sermon preparation and academic research, but I'll be sure to go to my digital edition rather than the print copy for easy cross-referencing to the biblical text!

I received this book from Baker Publishing Group's Blogger Review Program for the purposes of providing an unbiased review. All views are my own.

View all my reviews

Review: Worship by the Book

Worship by the Book by D.A. Carson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed this book. Having grown up in a charismatic tradition and having recently discovered the whole new world (yes reference to Aladdin) of reformed theology, I was so very enriched to learn of carefully thought through worship service sequences. Carson's excellent opening chapter on "worship under the word" sometimes were beyond my understanding, but it is going to be something i will refer to, time and time again, so to better catch a glimpse of how worship could be like before we pass into eternity.

When I have to do spring cleaning of my books, this is definitely one that I will keep for a long time. A absolutely helpful resource, especially for decision makers in churches, both old established ones and new church-plants.

View all my reviews

The Genre of Revelation from a "secular" viewpoint

F F Bruce recounts the occasion whereby a Christian was giving away a New Testament translation of the Bible as part of his evangelistic endeavors, on the condition that the undergraduates at the university who received them would read them. When he bumped into one of these students a few months later, he found that that student did in fact read it. In response to the question of what did the "unchurched" undergraduates thought of it, he replied, "the front end was a bit repetitious, telling the same story four times, but I sure like that bit of science fiction at the end."

D A Carson cites this exchange as an example of how to interpret any form of literature, we need to recognise the genre, "you don't interpret all text the same way! They are not all chronicles, they are not all parables, they are not all poems, they are not all history. The bible is made up of many different genres... Most things that you read, you You dont take the editoral page the same way as "

For the extended explanation and discourse, please refer to his lecture (starting at approx 8mins) at Revelation (part 1)

Carson on expository preaching

"We have been intimidated by the atemporal systematicians and by the narrowly inductive biblical theologians. And have not done whole bible biblical theology."

From (Time 44:13-44:22) of The Primacy of Expository Preaching, Part 2

Carson on pastors limiting their counselling hours

I do not know of a single minister in a substantial sized church anywhere who maintains a healthy preaching habit, who does not limit his hours in the counselling room. I don't know of one.

They start saying things like, "I have so many hours per week for counselling. Once those hours are filled, apart from crises, I don't take anybody else on. Full stop. If I can't refer them, I'm sorry but there's only so many hours left. And I cannot rob 200 people in order to try to save 1."

Somehow or rather, as part of our commitment to preaching, however much counselling we do, once we've agreed to the number of hours, apart from crises, you draw a line. Or else your preaching becomes flatter and flatter and staler and staler. And the pressure, the pressure of the immediate gradually squeezes out the importance of the transcendental.

From (Time: 14:51-15:47) of The Primacy of Expository Preaching, Part 1

Carson on the primacy of expository preaching

I guess I still am more comfortable with expository preaching based on biblical theology rather than topical preaching based on systematic preaching. I was going to type out Carson's transcript, thankfully somebody already summarised it for me. I'll copy the text just in case his blog goes bust, but otherwise the original post is here:

D. A. Carson on 5 Elements of Expository Preaching and a Defense on Why it Ought to be Primary

A Definition from Carson on Expository Preaching from Preach the Word (176-7):

“Exposition is simply the unpacking of what is there… it is unpacking what the biblical text or texts actually say.”

A Definition from his article, “Accept No Substitutes: 6 Reasons not to Abandon Expository Preaching”:

“The expository sermon must be controlled by a Scripture text or texts. Expository preaching arises directly and demonstrably from a passage or passages of Scripture.”

5 Elements of Expository Preaching (assuming the definition of preaching already given):

1. It is preaching subject matter which emerges directly and demonstrably from a passage or passages of Scripture. The content must be controlled by a text or texts not losing the flow of the passage. It is explication of text(s). Topical preaching finds its organizing principle from some external ordering. Textual preaching takes a smaller portion and often loses the flow of the context.
2. It is not simply running commentary on texts. It is not a bible reading (done in the U. K.). But expository preaching is (1) heavily committed to application, (2) it is far more committed to structure, and (3) each sermon coheres and can stand as an individual unit.
3. It is not necessarily systematic preaching through a book or a larger part of a book. You can preach on temptation and choose 4 sermons based on 4 passages from Genesis 39, 2 Samuel 11, Matthew 4, and James 1. Each sermon can be an expository sermon directly and demonstrably from the main passage.
4. The length of each passage is exceedingly variable. Not everyone is Martyn Lloyd-Jones who can preach Romans in 8 years. One preacher did Job in 4 and it was powerful.  “Our age is particularly short of a certain kind of expository sermon. The expository sermon of a passage that is sufficiently long that should teach people how to read their bibles… We are ministering now to men and women who have very little bible knowledge in many cases. And if you pull a half-verse out and expound for 45 minutes, you may not be teaching people how to read their texts. “
5. At its best, it is preaching which however dependent it may be for its content on the text or texts at hand, draws attention to innercanonical connections that inexorably move to Jesus Christ.

Why should it be primary? (Also found in his article, “Accept No Substitutes: 6 Reasons not to Abandon Expository Preaching”)

1. It’s the method least likely to stray far from Scripture.
2. It teaches people how to read their bibles, especially if you take large enough sections (not just to understand but to apply the text).
3. Gives confidence to the preacher and if done rightly authorizes the sermon. It will be God’s message to the church, and you’ll know it is. This is wonderfully freeing.
4. It meets the need for relevance without letting the clamor for relevance dictate the message.
5. It not only enables but forces preachers to handle the tough sections.
6. It enables the preacher to expound systematically the whole counsel of God so long as the portions are substantial. You’ve got take large chunks of the Bible to preach the whole Bible.

Carson on how Keller preaches

Carson comments on his good friend's Keller's preaching style in (Time 34:35 to 36:09) of
Introduction to Systematic Theology:

...one of the things that Tim Keller is constantly doing: (well people have different strengths of course; people have different priorities in their preaching). There are some preachers who instantly gravitate toward biblical theology and trace out the bible story lines, draw the thing out and tie together with a nice bow. And you see the whole thing put together beautifully and you think, this is fantastic! Isn't God wonderful?

That's not what Tim Keller does.

What Tim Keller does is focus on something central in the text that he's looking, at and then masses it within the structure of biblical thought on that theme in order to address the present day age. He is always thinking synthetically and apologetically.

I'm not saying that's a bad way to preach, I'm saying that's not the only way to preach. One of the things that happens in the gospel coalition is amongst speakers both men and women who are given the responsibility to expound on the word of God, we look for people who try to handle the word well, who have diversities of style and emphases and so on.

The only reason I'm mentioning Tim is not because he is necessarily the best or the worst, but because he gravitates in his preaching toward moving from the text to the big synthesis to the application very quickly, and then spends alot of his time there. You see? That's characteristic of the way he thinks and preaches. That's one of the better functions of systematic theology.

Carson on expository preaching

Why establish expository preaching as primary?

1. It is the method least likely to stray too far from revelation/Scripture.

2. (This one cannot be emphasised enough) Properly done, and especially if the selections of Scripture you choose to expound are reasonably extensive, i.e. not just a quarter of a verse, expository preaching teaches people how to read their bibles.

Show me a congregation that has been fed on ten years of thoughtful expository preaching and I'll show you a congregation that knows how to read its bible. Otherwise they will always be a higher percentage of Christians in the local assembly who have a kind of proof-texting approach...

3. Expository preaching gives confidence to the preacher and authorises the sermon. In order words, the more faithful and demonstrably your sermon is reflecting scripture, then when somebody challenges you at the door, "I hated what you said this morning, I mean that's disgusting. I don't believe that at all." You smile sweetly and say, "are you disagreeing with me or with Paul? Do you dislike it because I said it or because God said it?" This sort of changes who's on the defensive, doesn't it?

Now I'm not being mean, I'm merely that saying that at the end of the day, the authority of Scripture is really important. And that also means, that when you are preaching, you must not simply be faithful in explaining what the text said. (That's part of expository preaching). But dont forget I said directly and demonstrably authorising what you say from Scripture. So you must not only explain it but ideally you must say, "do you see that in verse 3?" That's why you want people to have their bibles with them. Or use pew bibles. Or print the text on an overhead. Or put it in the bulletin. Do something! But get the text up before people's eyes.

And every significant point that you make, make sure that they see that it is demonstrably derived from Scripture. That's what authorises the sermon! And it is what enables you at the door to say, "are you arguing with me or God Almighty?" So it gives confidence to the preacher and rightly done, authorises the sermon.

From 1h 4min to 1h 7min 54sec of The What and Why of Expository Preaching

Carson on preaching

"There is a way of preaching, in which you project an image of being an expert. There is a way of preaching, in which you project an image of having been captured."

From 50:51-51:09 (Time) of Preaching Through Bible Books

Carson on theologians and administrators in church leadership

In local churches (and in institutions which claim to be confessionally biblical)... you must have at their head, people who are not only theologically trained but who have been tested in matters of discernment, who have an ultimate say.

And under them they need a wide battery of capable administrators. (Far be it for me to criticise administrators, they are blessings sent from God. Administration is a charasmatic gift, do you remember that? Thank God for administrators!)

But at the same time, administrators are rarely the most discerning regarding the pattern of sound teaching, rarely.


From (Time: 40:51 to 41:36) of
Motivation for Ministry

You may agree or disagree with D A Carson, but ignore his warning at great peril.