Thursday 1 April 2010

D.A. Carson on The God Who is There

Baker Publishing Group have listed a forthcoming (July 2010) book by D.A Carson on the biblical story, called The God Who is There: Finding Your Place in God’s Story.

Here is the publisher’s blurb:

‘It can no longer be assumed that most people – or even most Christians – have a basic understanding of the Bible. Many don’t know the difference between the Old and New Testament, and even the more well-known biblical figures are often misunderstood. It is getting harder to talk about Jesus accurately and compellingly because listeners have no proper context with which to understand God’s story of redemption.

In this basic introduction to faith, D.A. Carson takes seekers, new Christians, and small groups through the big story of Scripture. He helps readers to know what they believe and why they believe it. The companion leader’s guide helps evangelistic study groups, small groups, and Sunday school classes make the best use of this book in group settings.’

The subtitle is very close to the subtitle of the volume by Craig G. Bartholomew and Michael Goheen, The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), and it will be interesting to see where Carson’s treatment of the biblical story will differ from theirs and the many others who have now written along similar lines.

Meanwhile, if July is too far away, Carson’s The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Leicester: Apollos, 1996) contains two weighty chapters given over to the main plot points in Scripture, as does part of his more-recent Christ and Culture Revisited (Nottingham: Apollos, 2008), and several iterations of studies on Paul’s Athens speech in Acts 17 (e.g., here), all of which might provide a flavour of the forthcoming book. I’ll certainly be ordering a copy.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting title, especially as God is always absolutely present right HERE, now and in every moment.

It also implies that he (the author) is separate from God. He the author is here, and God is separate, or over "there".

Plus exactly where is "there" as distinct from here.

After all everything and everyone, indeed the entire cosmic display always arises simultaneously right HERE and Now.

Plus to ask the question "does God Exist" and to try to thus prove that God exist, is really to affirm the negative proposition that God does not exist until absolutely proven otherwise by the SAME DOUBT filled mind that asked the question in the first place.

Real God is completely obvious.