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Basics for believers

Rediscovery

BASICS FOR BELIEVERS
By Don Carson
IVP. 132 pages. £4.99
ISBN 1 84474 030 7

This short book is solid meat. It contains just four chapters and those chapters cover Paul's Letter to the Philippians, which is itself a book of just four chapters, as we know.

The trouble for many believers is that Philippians is chock-full of so many Scripture memory verses and excellent one-liners to pull out for a variety of occasions, that we can be in danger of losing the thrust of the letter as a whole. Paul did not write it as a collection of pithy sayings and handy hints; Don Carson takes some broad brushstrokes to show us how the argument hangs together. Only after that does he nail down the meaning of those memorable quotes into the context. And he applies them without mercy. So this is masterly exposition.

Readers who attended Word Alive in 1994 have another opportunity (as it says in the Radio Times about all those repeats) to discover afresh the apostle's passion for the gospel and for the Saviour. That is well worth doing. It is excellent to have this material generally available again. Basics? I wish they were.

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