Happy birthday to D.A. Carson, born in Ottawa, Canada on this day in 1946. A pastor's son, Dr. Carson is research professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, where he has been since 1978. From the Gospel Coalition website:Dr. Carson is a biblical scholar with a pastoral heart. For more reflections on this theme see Jason's article on Carson from last December. I have profited from Carson's technical commentaries and from the more popular-level biblical studies he has written. Quite possibly the most helpful books I've read from him so far have been Exegetical Fallacies and A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. The former helped me to rightly interpret Scripture better; the latter helped me pray more scripturally-informed prayers.Carson came to Trinity from the faculty of Northwest Baptist Theological Seminary in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he also served for two years as academic dean. He has served as assistant pastor and pastor and has done itinerant ministry in Canada and the United Kingdom.
Carson received the Bachelor of Science in chemistry from McGill University, the Master of Divinity from Central Baptist Seminary in Toronto, and the Doctor of Philosophy in New Testament from the University of Cambridge.
A bibliography of D.A. Carson's published works can be found here on the Gospel Coalition website. Also available is an extensive collection of mp3 sermons and lectures by Carson, collected by Andy Naselli.
Do you have favorite books or sermons by D.A. Carson? How has he helped you the most? Let us know in the comments.
Happy Birthday!!!!
ReplyDeleteThis is very timely. Thanks for the reminder, Tim. Just yesterday I preached the Christmas Story from Matthew's Gospel and recommended Carson's commentary to the church. Studying for this sermon was a great joy and blessing. I read as many of the commentaries (that I own) as I could on the passage I was studying. When I came to Carson's commentary in The Expositor's Bible Commentary series, I was amazed at the depth, thoroughness and pastoral appeal of his comments. I was very glad for the help that I found there.
You also mentioned his book, A Call to Spiritual Reformation. A reader of this blog sent me a copy of this a few months ago and it has been a blessing too. Just last night, I was discussing with a couple of friends my desire to study the topic of prayer with our Bible Study group. I first thought of Andrew Murray's classic, With Christ in the School of Prayer. Then, before we left, I remembered Carson's book. This would make an excellent book for a group study. I hope that we get to do this.
Thanks, Jason. What you said about Carson's commentary on Matthew seems to apply to all his books - depth, thoroughness, and pastoral appeal.
ReplyDeleteI agree that A Call to Spiritual Reformation lends itself to group study. Carson even suggests this in his preface: "To facilitate the use of this book in group study and in Sunday school classes, I have included questions at the end of each chapter. The questions sometimes require factual answers (and are therefore useful for review), and sometimes require reflection, debate, or further study...." (p. 10). We used this book profitably about six years ago in our Sunday school class.
Glad you're getting preaching opportunities. Any time is a good time to preach, but especially certain seasons like Advent!