Carson on Use of OT in Hebrews

Our Ryan Center Conference this last weekend, “Word Within the Word,” went very well. It was a delight to see old friends and former students as about 230 registrants along with many students packed into the Grant Center.

Dr. D. A. Carson’s plenary addresses were excellent, and I commend them to you as examples for understanding how the NT uses the Old Testament. This is an important and sometimes difficult issue. As Dr. Carson stated in the first session:

“If you’ve never been troubled by the way the New Testament quotes the Old, you’ve never read the New Testament and looked up the texts it actually quotes.”

He dealt with three texts in Hebrews where OT texts are quoted. Links will take you to the audio of each lecture.
Plenary 1- Psalm 2:7 and 2 Samuel 7:14 in Hebrews 1
Plenary 2-Psalm 95 in Heb 3-4
Plenary 3- Gen 14 and Psalm 110 in Heb 7

In these lectures Carson not only demonstrates the way to understand the use of the Old Testament but also makes valuable observations on theology and pastoral application. Listening to these lectures will be a valuable investment of time.

Update: UU News Release

Word Within the Word

Last month I mentioned that Dr. Don Carson will be our plenary speaker at the Ryan Center conference this coming April. The conference web page is now up and online registration is open.

The conference theme is “Word Within the Word: The New Testament Use of the Old Testament.” Dr. Carson will develop this theme in his three plenary addresses.

Breakout sessions will further develop the main theme as well as addressing other issues in studying the Bible. David and Sally Michael, from Children Desiring God and Bethlehem Baptist Church, will join us to lead a breakout session on engaging children in Bible study. Ray Clendenen and Terry Wilder, both of B&H Academic, will lead sessions on Malachi and the book of Romans respectively. Other Union faculty will lead breakout sessions.

The conference will begin Friday evening, April 24 and conclude sat afternoon, April 25. The cost is $50 per person until March 23, when the price becomes $60. That covers the entire conference (3 addresses from Dr Carson, 3 breakout sessions, 2 meals and a continental breakfast).

You can also keep up with details about the conference at the Center’s Facebook page and the Conference Faecbook page.

Memoirs of An Ordinary Pastor by D. A. Carson

Memoirs of An Ordinary Pastor by D. A. Carson


This is probably the forthcoming book about which I am most excited. I deeply appreciate the ministry of Dr. Carson as I have studied in his classes, read his books and listened to his sermons. Some who have not heard him in person may not realize his heart for the ordinary pastor. This was a common theme I heard from him, particularly in his Advanced Greek Exegesis class. This may seem to have been an odd setting, but I think he was seeking to keep our feet on the ground lest we get too caught up in what we thought we knew.

Along the way I remember him referring to the labors of his father, his faithfulness in obscurity and suffering. Not too long ago, Dr. Carson gave a moving tribute to his father as an example of faithful, unknown pastors everywhere in the Forum section of the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. (I have been unable to find this on the website. If someone has the link please send it along)

So, I am excited about now having a book length treatment of this subject from Dr. Carson. I have been able to read some of the book and have really appreciated it. This is sorely needed in our day of Christian celebrity worship. I encourage you to pick up a copy of this book when it comes out. May it inspire us (as Carson suggests in his preface) not to seek to be the next well known hero of the faith, but simply to be faithful. If God be pleased nothing else will matter.

Carson on Keeping the Gospel Central

Here is a lengthy quote once more from Carson’s Basics for Believers. It is long, but I think this is a good word for us today when many issues are crying out for our attention. This no doubt speaks to many situations, but I confess I am thinking primarily of my own denomination, the SBC. Far too long we have assumed people ‘get’ the gospel, and we may be tempted therefore to spend the bulk of our time on denominational distinctives, cultural engagement, etc. We must not make the error of assuming the first things. Let us be gospel-people first.

“In a fair bit of Western evangelicalism, there is a worrying tendency to focus of the periphery. I have a colleague in the Missions Department at Trinity whose analysis of his own heritage is very helpful. Dr. Paul Hiebert labored for years in India before returning to the United States to teach. He springs from Mennonite stock and analyzes his heritage in a fashion that he himself would acknowledge is something of a simplistic caricature, but a useful one nonetheless. One generation of Mennonites believed the gospel and held as well that there were certain social, economic, and political entailments. The next generation assumed the gospel, but identified with the entailments. The following generation denied the gospel; the ‘entailments’ became everything. Assuming this sort of scheme for evangelicalism, one suspects that large swaths of the movement are lodged in the second step, with
some drifting toward the third.

What we must ask one another is this: What is it in the Christian faith that excites you? What consumes your time? What turns you on? Today there are endless subgroups of confessing Christians who invest enormous quantities of time and energy in one issue or another: abortion, pornography, home schooling, women’s ordination (for or against), economic justice, a certain style of worship, the defense of a particular Bible version, and much more. The list varies from country to country, but not few countries have a full agenda of urgent, peripheral demands. Not for a moment am I suggesting we should not thin about such matters or throw our weight behind some of them. But when such matters devour most of our time and passion, each of us must ask: In what fashion am I confessing the centrality of the gospel?”

Carson next acknowledges the great cultural work of people like Newton and Wilberforce and others.

“But virtually without exception these men and women put the gospel first. They were gospel people. They reveled in it, preached it, cherished Bible reading and exposition that was Christ-centered and gospel centered, and from that base moved out into the broader social agendas. In short, they put the gospel first, not least in their own aspirations. Not to see this priority means we are not more than a generation away from denying the gospel.” (26-27)

Three Dollars Worth of Gospel

I always recommend to pastors that they purchase all of Don Carson’s little paperback expositions because I think they are some of the best expositional material available. They are models of exegesis, application, and preaching in general.

I just came back across this following quote from Basics for Believers: An Exposition of Philippians . This is piercing application. I am cut to the quick. I know the approach to life he is satirizing not simply by looking out at others but by looking within. I need to hear this word again. And, how we need this word in our churches! All too easily we warp the gospel into a way for securing the ‘good life’ for ourselves.

“I would like to buy about three dollars worth of gospel, please. Not too much – just enough to make me happy, but not so much that I get addicted. I don’t want so much gospel that I learn to really hate covetousness and lust. I certainly don’t want so much that I start to love my enemies, cherish self-denial, and contemplate missionary service in some alien culture. I want ecstasy, not repentance; I want transcendence, not transformation. I would like to be cherished by some nice, forgiving, broad-minded people, but I myself don’t want to love those from different races – especially if they smell. I would like enough gospel to make my family
secure and my children well behaved, but not so much that I find my ambitions redirected or my giving too greatly enlarged. I would like about three dollars worth of the gospel, please.” (pp. 12-13)

Brothers, we must preach this searching point. Many will be entirely content for us to “do our sermon”, but when you begin to press the call of the gospel to shape our lives, rebuke our sin, calling for repentance many will rebel. But without this we have failed to discharge our ministries (Col 4:17). Without this we are mere hirelings awaiting rebuke from the Master on the final day. There is no discount version of the Gospel. It is all or nothing. Let us wield the searching sword of the Spirit (Heb 4:12) as those who have first been pierced by it.

Carson’s Review of Wright’s Evil and the Justice of God

As I am catching up on some projects and reading, I just read Don Carson’s 10 page review of N. T. Wright’s Evil and the Justice of God. I recommend the review to you. It is good reading for pastors. Dealing with the reality of suffering and evil in the world is a perennial pastoral task (I would recommend Carson’s own book How Long O Lord on this). Carson summarizes the book chapter by chapter noting strengths. Then he turns to critique. The critiques get to the heart of many troublesome issues arising today.

For example Carson challenges Wright’s portrayal of God as “having” to work in certain ways to ‘fix’ the world, and the emerging overly psychologized picture of God needing to “release himself from the burden of always having to be angry with a world gone wrong” (Wright’s words). Carson also challenges the regular description of God’s plan as “daring and risky” involving “so much ambiguity.”

There is much here- more than I can summarize now- so I encourage you to print off the review and take time to read it. It is helpful discussion for keeping our thinking rooted biblically in an age of increasing theological confusion.