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Don Carson Biography
Don Carson is a Canadian-born American, Reformed Evangelical theologian and professor of the New Testament. He founded the Gospel Coalition.
Don Carson Age
He was born Donald Arthur Carson on December 21, 1946. He was born in Montreal, Quebec.
Don Carson Family
He was born to Thomas Donald McMillan Carson and Elizabeth Margaret Maybury.
Don Carson Wife
He married Joy Wheildon on August 16, 1975.
Don Carson Educational Background
Carson earned his B.S. (1967) in chemistry and mathematics from McGill University, his M.Div. from Heritage Baptist College and Heritage Theological Seminary, and his Ph.D. (1975) in the New Testament from Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Don Carson
Don Carson Career
From 1970 to 1972, Carson worked as pastor of the Richmond Baptist Church in Richmond, British Columbia. He served three years at the Northwest Baptist Theological College after his doctoral research and was the seminary’s founding dean in 1976. Carson joined Trinity Evangelical Divinity School’s faculty in 1978, where he presently serves as a professor of studies.
A Festschrift, Understanding the Times: New Testament Studies in the 21st Century: Essays in Honor of D, was released in his memory in 2011. A. Carson on the 65th birthday occasion. Andreas J. Köstenberger, Grant Osborne, Mark Dever, Douglas Moo, Peter O’Brien, and Craig Blomberg were among the contributors.
Carson is a founding council member of The Gospel Coalition.
Don Carson Books
The King James Version Debate: A Plea for Realism
Exegetical Fallacies
Showing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12-14
How Long, O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil
An Introduction to the New Testament
The Gospel according to John
A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers
The Cross and Christian Ministry: Leadership Lessons from 1 Corinthians
The Inclusive Language Debate: A Plea for Realism
The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God
For the Love of God
Telling the Truth: Evangelizing Postmoderns
Telling the Truth: Evangelizing Postmoderns
Gagging of God, The: Christianity Confronts Pluralism
Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications
An Introduction to the New Testament
Christ and Culture Revisited
Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson
The Intolerance of Tolerance
Evangelicalism: What Is It and Is It Worth Keeping?
Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus
Sermon on the Mount: An Exposition of Matthew 5-7
The God Who Is There: Finding Your Place In God’s
Jesus the Son of God: A Christological Title Often Overlooked, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Disputed
Praying with Paul: A Call To Spiritual Reformation
Don Carson Quotes
“People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”
“If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent an economist. If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician. If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor. But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death; and he sent us a Savior. ”
“However hard some things are to understand, it is never helpful to start picking and choosing biblical truths we find congenial, as if the Bible is an open-shelved supermarket where we are at perfect liberty to choose only the chocolate bars. For the Christian, it is God’s Word, and it is not negotiable. What answers we find may not be exhaustive, but they give us the God who is there, and who gives us some measure of comfort and assurance. The alternative is a god we manufacture, and who provides no comfort at all. Whatever comfort we feel is self-delusion, and it will be stripped away at the end when we give an account to the God who has spoken to us, not only in Scripture, but supremely in his Son Jesus Christ.”
“In the moral realm, there is very little consensus left in Western countries over the proper basis of moral behavior. And because of the power of the media, for millions of men and women the only venue where moral questions are discussed and weighed is the talk show, where more often than not the primary aim is to entertain, even shock, not to think. When Geraldo and Oprah become the arbiters of public morality, when the opinion of the latest media personality is sought on everything from abortion to transvestites, when banality is mistaken for profundity because [it’s] uttered by a movie star or a basketball player, it is not surprising that there is less thought than hype. Oprah shapes more of the nation’s grasp of right and wrong than most of the pulpits in the land. Personal and social ethics have been removed from the realms of truth and structures of thoughts; they have not only been relativized, but they have been democratized and trivialized.”
“Although there are things that can be done to enhance corporate worship, there is a profound sense in which excellent worship cannot be attained merely by pursuing excellent worship. In the same way that, according to Jesus, you cannot find yourself until you lose yourself, so also you cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship and pursue God himself. Despite the protestations, one sometimes wonders if we are beginning to worship worship rather than worship God. As a brother put it to me, it’s a bit like those who begin by admiring the sunset and soon begin to admire themselves admiring the sunset.”
“The broader problem is that a great deal of popular preaching and teaching uses the bible as a pegboard on which to hang a fair bit of Christianized pop psychology or moralizing encouragement, with very little effort to teach the faithful, from the Bible, the massive doctrines of historic confessional Christianity.”
“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 gospel, please.”