Keep Taking the Tablets!: A Prescriptive Guide to the 10 Commandments

by David Carr

Carr is quite right in saying that, although as Christians we live under the covenant of grace, we are not free from God's moral law. He is also right in pointing out that grace is “more than” the law i.e. that Christ set even higher standards than the Law. Unfortunately, in spite of these and some other helpful things which he says, the book is not very well written. Throughout the book the only reason given for keeping the commandments is in order that we be blessed. Almost nothing is said about glorifying God or reflecting his glory through a Christ-like life. In addition there is an un-biblical emphasis on self-love (Jesus' command to love our neighbour as ourselves is a command to love our neighbour, not a command to love ourselves!) and sometimes the influence of word-faith teaching (positive confession) comes through.

192 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2007

About the author

David Carr was a journalist who wrote for The New York Times. His peers often praised him for his humility and candor.

Carr overcame an addiction to cocaine and wrote about his experiences as an addict in The Night of the Gun. The New Yorker called it "bracingly honest memoir. In sharp and sometimes poetic prose, the author takes a detailed inventory of his years of drug addiction."

In February, 2015 he collapsed in the New York Times newsroom and was pronounced dead shortly after. He was married to Jill Carr and had three children.