The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God

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Outstanding, succinct treatment of God's love - Rated
This book has only 78 pages of text, but it is worth reading and re-reading. In it, Carson carefully categorises the Bible's message about God's love. He shows how the different strands fit together. He affirms God's love for all the world and his particular love for those he has chosen. He shows how John can tell us in his gospel that God loved the world, but tells us not to in his first letter!

He discusses the popular, but recent interpretation of the meaning of two Greek words used in John 21 in more detail than he did in his excellent, earlier book "Exegetical Fallacies." Since reading his argument, I have become convinced of his view that the two words do not have great differences in meaning in the New Testament (or in the Greek translation of the Old Testament).

At times, Carson's writing is not easy to read, but this book is one of his most lucid.

Highly recommended.

Balancing Grace and Law - Rated
A thin book examining the different ways that the bible describes the love of God, Carson discusses some difficult but worthwhile material. Don't be fooled by the brevity of this book which is theologically dense and probably worth reading more than once.

Do you believe in God's grace and salvation by faith and sometimes find yourself in conflict with those who would emphasise the Christian obligation to obey God's laws? Do you believe in the justice of God, his righteousness and wrath and sometimes find yourself in conflict with those who emphasise salvation by faith, not of works? Carson describes six different ways that the bible describes God's love and shows how these seemingly different concepts can be held in productive "tension" within the Christian life.