I Would Like about Three Dollars Worth of the Gospel, Please

D. A. Carson, Basics for Believers: An Exposition of Philippians (Baker, 1996):



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)

Dr. Ben Carson at National Prayer Breakfast

At Thursday morning's National Prayer Breakfast, Dr. Benjamin Carson, a celebrated pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, gave a 25-minute long keynote address that directly refuted the key tenets of President Barack Obama’s liberal agenda – with Obama sitting just feet away.

Dr. Carson attacked political correctness as “horrible” and dangerous. Dr. Carson credited personal responsibility, not government assistance, for taking from a childhood of poverty to a lifetime of success.

Dr. Carson attacked fiscal irresponsibility, instead urging restrained spending. “One of our big problems right now...our deficit is a big problem. Think about it — and our national debt — $16 and a half trillion dollars,” said Dr. Carson as Obama watched. Obama increased the federal debt by $5.8 trillion in his first term, the worst ever increase in a presidential term.

Dr. Carson went on to press for a flat tax, rejecting Obama’s call for higher taxes on higher earners. ”When I pick up my Bible, you know what I see — I see the fairest individual in the universe — God — and he’s given us a system. It’s called tithe,” said Dr. Carson. Carson went on to extol their fairness of the flat tax, under which everyone pays the same rate.

Dr. Carson also diametrically opposed ObamaCare, attacking the idea of government bureaucracy funding health care and instead recommending private health savings accounts.

The National Prayer Breakfast, an annual D.C. event that gave us President Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech, made history again this year with a highly accomplished black doctor directly refuting liberalism and ObamaCare in front of the President.

Slavery and the New Testament

From Andy Naselli...

Many modern readers assume that slavery in the New Testament is equivalent to the race-based slavery of the African slave trade. While not defending the Greco-Roman institution of slavery, Tim Keller and Don Carson explain why it’s important not to equate it with the race-based slavery that we may be more familiar with.

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