Ministering in a Post-Christian World

Setting Good Foundations

D A Carson has been one of the more prolific scholar-authors of the past twenty years. He has recently published a work designed to present the Gospel to people raised in ignorance of the Christian faith. It does not fall into the trap of presuming that people have even a modicum of understanding of God, the creation, redemptive history, of Messiah, and His great redemptive works. We believe that increasingly this approach to evangelism and discipling the nations will need to be applied in the biblically-ignorant post-Christian West.

The book is entitled, The God Who is There: Finding Your Place in God's Story. Here is the publisher's description:

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.

Here are a couple of blurbs:

Don Carson’s The God Who Is There is a unique and important volume in many ways. It is neither a traditional systematic theology nor a Bible survey. It unpacks the whole Biblical storyline through the lens of God’s character and actions. As a ministry tool, it can be used for evangelism, since it so thoroughly lays out the doctrine of God, as Paul does on Mars Hill in Acts 17. And yet it also does what the catechisms of the Reformation churches did: give Christians a grounding in basic biblical beliefs and behavior. By all means, get this book!
—Tim Keller

This is a much-needed book. D. A. Carson is one of the few biblical scholars who are gifted to write simply and in a way that captivates. We live in a time when people quickly reject or accept the Bible without even knowing its contents. Carson does a masterful job of explaining the Scriptures so that a person who has never even opened the Bible can understand it. At the same time, those who grew up under its teaching will find valuable and obvious truths that will lead them to greater worship and appreciation of the God we serve.
—Francis Chan

Here is the Table of Contents:

1. The God Who Made Everything
2. The God Who Does Not Wipe Out Rebels
3. The God Who Writes His Own Agreements
4. The God Who Legislates
5. The God Who Reigns
6. The God Who Is Unfathomably Wise
7. The God Who Becomes a Human Being
8. The God Who Grants New Birth
9. The God Who Loves
10. The God Who Dies—and Lives Again
11. The God Who Declares the Guilty Just
12. The God Who Gathers and Transforms His People
13. The God Who Is Very Angry
14. The God Who Triumphs

You can read the Preface and Chapter One online, here

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Hat Tip: Justin Taylor.