A Newsletter of weekly meditations on Biblical Theology and curated resources from The Carson Center

July 1, 2026

“He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.’” Genesis 22:2

“And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’” Matthew 3:16–17

Read: Genesis 22; Matthew 21; Nehemiah 11; Acts 21

If you have children, you probably remember the moment your first child was born. Though you had been preparing for this moment for months, nothing can prepare you for the moment you first see your child. God put into humans a powerful bond between parents and children. This unique relationship points to one of Scripture’s greatest truths and is at the heart of the gospel.

Genesis 22 speaks to this relationship between a parent and child in a heart-wrenching chapter. God has promised Abraham and Sarah that they would have children, but now that Isaac is born, God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to him on Mount Moriah. In the ancient world, it was not uncommon for foreign gods to ask people to sacrifice their children for them. Abraham shows remarkable faith in Yahweh’s promise that he would still have many children (Gen 12:2; 15:5; 17:4–6) and goes up on the mountain in obedience to his command. However, when Abraham is about to sacrifice Issac, the Lord provides a substitute on Isaac’s behalf.

There are many reasons why God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, but one of them is certainly because it foreshadows how God will save his people. The Father himself will offer his only beloved Son as a sacrifice on another hill called Golgotha. As Abraham was to take his only Son and sacrifice him, so God gave up his only Son, his beloved Son, so that the world might be saved by him. When Jesus is baptized and transfigured (Matt. 3:16–17; 17:5), a voice comes from the heavens (like it did for Abraham) identifying that Jesus of Nazareth is God’s beloved Son. As the Lord provided for Abraham on Mount Moriah, so now God has provided for us on Golgotha. While Jesus is not God’s Son in the same way we have children, God has built into the pattern of the universe signs that point us to the gospel. The Father was willing to send his Son to die on our behalf so that we might become children of God (John 1:12). – Patrick Schreiner

Reflect: Ponder the depth of God’s love for you as shown by the sacrifice of his Son. Is there any greater love than to give up what is dearest to you for others? If God loves you this much, how much more should you follow his commands?

“The Good and Bad of Retrieval Theology” by Shawn Wright

As gospel-believing Christians, we know that God has sovereignly guided the church throughout all its history. Does this mean we’re obligated to believe everything the church has ever believed? If not, what are we to hold on to from the past?

This is where retrieval theology enters the picture. Retrieval theology is different from church history or historical theology. Those disciplines seek to understand the past and trace the development of doctrine over time. Retrieval does more than that. Seeing dangers and problems abounding in our present moment, retrieval looks to the past to correct the present. Understanding it will help us grasp why some Protestants may be tempted to convert to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy.

Evangelical practitioners of retrieval often adopt it to clarify the doctrine of the Trinity or refine their biblical hermeneutics. Driven by dissatisfaction with modern approaches to the Trinity and the quest for “the author’s original intention,” they seek to jump over the Enlightenment’s errors and retrieve the insights of the medieval and patristic eras.

Unfortunately, in their desire to go back in time to what they think is a better way of doing theology, some evangelicals have abandoned evangelicalism altogether. In seeking to protect the gospel, they come to conclusions antithetical to the biblical gospel.

Historical theology is useful. Retrieval theology is also useful. But uncritical retrieval theology is not. Let’s consider two cautions for a proper understanding of retrieval theology.

READ TWO CAUTIONS FOR RETRIEVAL

Dr. Don Carson responds to the perennial challenge presented when someone says, “Well, that’s just your interpretation.” How do we get past this defeater to a persuasive presentation of the gospel? Dr. Carson helps us to navigate this question with grace and truth.

At times the Bible presents the reader with apparent discrepancy. Some use these “problems” as opportunities to critique the Christian understanding of scripture as inerrant and infallible, as well as to doubt scripture’s authority, clarity, sufficiency, and necessity. In this essay, Vern Poythress helps us to think through how to approach these “problems.” He argues we must approach the Bible as the word of an ultimately incomprehensible God, for which the context of the passage within the whole of the Bible and within the history of redemption, and the attitude of the interpreter is of the utmost importance.

READ “Approaching Biblical ‘Problems’” by Vern Poythress

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