Title: The God Who is There: Finding Your Place in God’s Story
Author: D. A. Carson
Publisher: Crossway, 2010; 234 pp. $16.99
Recommendation (4-star scale): 
Three days ago our church again began our annual trek through the Scriptures.
Now one of the so-called problems of reading through the Bible in one year is the inevitable questions about the meaning and purpose of some of the passages we read and how all the Scriptures fit together. What is the meaning and purpose of the Bible, anyway?
The most recent book by D. A. Carson, The God Who is There, is the answer to those kinds of questions. Originally, this book was a series of 14 lectures given at a conference hosted by The Gospel Coalition. In fact, the audio and video from those lectures is available for free viewing or download at TGC.
Carson’s tenet is simple: there are a number of core themes about God that are revealed in the Scriptures, and beginning in Genesis and then moving through to the end of Revelation, Carson demonstrates those themes.
What I have tried to do here is run through the Bible in fourteen chapters. Each chapter focuses on one or more passages from the Bible, unpacks it a little, and tries to build connections with the context, drawing the lines together to show how they converge in Jesus.
And Carson does just that and does it very well. If one is a novice to the Bible, he will be helped by having the Bible explained in simple and clear terms; and if one is familiar with the Bible, he will still be helped by having the central truths reiterated and explained in clear ways.
The themes he explains are:
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
What is so helpful about this book is that it demonstrates that Scripture is designed to reveal the nature and character of God. The Bible is not merely an answer book for how to live, but it is a revelatory letter from God designed to stimulate and encourage our fellowship with Him and our love for Him. The unfolding of these truths by Carson accomplishes that very purpose.
A couple of items I thought could have been done better: one, I wish he had been more bold about a literal six-day creation. While seeming to give preference to that interpretation of Genesis 1-2, he does not clearly articulate that view. And secondly, he has missed what I believe is the grand and supreme theme of Scripture: the glory of God. The book would have been well-served by a summation chapter on that theme.
Apart from those two minor criticisms, however, this book is well-deserving of being read and one that will be of great benefit to every believer as he begins another annual trip through the book of Scripture.
Read this book if you want to grow in your knowledge of and love for God and His Word.
Words of Grace 