Thomas Boston: Christian Biographies for Young Readers, by Simonetta Carr; with illustrations by Matt Abraxas. Reformation Heritage, 2025, 63 pages, $20.00.

As part of our family devotions, our family watched Sinclair Ferguson’s video series The Whole Christ.[1] Ferguson introduces his subject matter by describing the “Auchterarder Controversy” and “the Marrow Men” (a group of men with whom Thomas Boston was identified). In chapter 5 of her book, Simonetta Carr clearly and concisely describes this controversy at a level a child could understand—a challenging accomplishment, since we had difficulty understanding it ourselves. My husband and I became so interested in Boston because of Ferguson’s series that we went to visit the site of Thomas Boston’s church in Scotland. It is almost in the middle of nowhere! Our quest to find his church and the discovery of its remoteness gave us great respect for Boston, especially his perseverance. We are delighted to see that Simonetta Carr has included him in her series of biographies on the great heroes of the faith.

Thomas Boston is one in a series of books subtitled Christian Biographies for Young Readers, written about distinguished characters from church history. Carr’s inspiration began while she was homeschooling her children. She always had a keen interest in history, especially philosophical and biographical history. During her homeschooling days, she attended a conference at her church on church history. Much of this information was new to her, especially the way the development of theology (incorrect and correct), through the ages, informed and shaped the church. She went in search of good sources to teach her children this particular kind of history—biography with an emphasis on theology and its influence on the church—but found nothing suitable for young audiences.[2] Friends and family encouraged her to do something about it, so she tried her hand at filling the void, produced a book, sent it to several publishing houses, and it was eventually published by Reformation Heritage Books from Grand Rapids, Michigan. She has since written a whole series consisting of twenty-three books. When asked how she decides on her subjects, she said she tries to choose “men and women who’ve had a major influence on Christian thought.”[3] Her main goal is to teach kids “to know what they believe and why,”[4] which has become a sort of slogan.

In the book Thomas Boston, Mrs. Carr focuses primarily on the topic of the true gospel. Thomas Boston grew up in Scotland in the seventeenth century when Christianity was the religion of the culture, but it was not necessarily pure. These were the days of the Scottish Covenanters—Boston’s father was one of those who was imprisoned. It was a time of struggle between the Church of England and true believers. The gospel was being mixed with tradition and legalism. Since his youth, Boston had loved the Bible and even mastered Greek and Hebrew so he could learn more about it, but “there was still much he did not understand about it.” King Charles II’s laws had made it illegal for faithful preachers to teach outside the Church of England, so learning of the true gospel was stunted. But after these laws were rescinded, Boston heard a sermon on John 1:29, “‘Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’ Thomas had never heard anyone explain so clearly the good news that Jesus came to take the punishment for all the sins of believers. . . . ‘I was like one amazed with some new and strange thing,’ he said” (12–13).

Carr describes how Boston, after receiving license to preach, became “eager to attack the sins he had noticed in some places” and “spent most of the sermons speaking against them, as if he could by his words ‘set fire to the devil’s nests.’” This left him “exhausted and discouraged.” A more experienced pastor told him, “If you started to preach about Christ, you would find it very pleasant” (18–19).

The theme regarding the true gospel continues when Carr develops the “Auchterarder” and the “Marrow Men” controversy. The details surrounding this controversy can be difficult to understand, in part due to the negative wording of the so-called Auchterarder creed (making conclusions from negative arguments is often difficult, but this time it is especially so). Carr explains them well. The topic of this debate was near and dear to Boston. He had not understood the true gospel as a young person, had not preached it well as a new pastor, and even continued to doubt his own worthiness as a more mature pastor (23).

In Thomas Boston, Carr nicely knits together Boston’s theological convictions, ministry concerns, and details of his personal life to create an inspiring picture of a man driven by his love for the gospel (“the whole Christ,” as Sinclair Ferguson called it). We see a man who struggled in the remote and sometimes spiritually hostile areas of Scotland and endured opposition from within the church itself. In short, his ministry was not easy.

Carr’s presentation style in Thomas Boston is eye-catching. The parchment backdrop sets a seventeenth-century mood. Some pages incorporate landscape photographs or sketched objects as the background. These alternating backdrops complement the text and the graphic design, and the way they fade into the page is subtly attractive. The type-set size and style combine to provide a pleasant visual experience. There are illustrations on almost every page. Portraits of the main characters balance the narrative. From time to time Carr includes period sketches of buildings and scenes which help to guide the mood. Tasteful artistic renderings of scenes from Boston’s life give the narrative realistic texture. Photographs of the landscapes and buildings from the areas where Boston lived and ministered reflect the remoteness of Boston’s ministry.

At the end of the book, Carr provides further helpful information: a simple timeline of Boston’s life and a “Did you know?” section with interesting tidbits about his life and times. She also includes a short extract from Boston’s work A Crook in the Lot in modernized language, capturing a nice summary section.

From my own experience as a homeschooling mother, I own a few books with similar content: Trial and Triumph, Stories from Church History by Richard M. Hannula (Canon Press, 1999) is a 300-page book summarizing the lives of forty-six church mothers and fathers, and Reformation Heroes by Diana Kleyn and Joel R. Beeke (Reformation Heritage, 2007) is a 240-page book covering the lives of about thirty reformers. A book more similar to Carr’s is a biography about Martin Luther called Martin Luther: A Man Who Changed the World by Paul Maier (Concordia, 2004). Hero Biographies published by YWAM Publishing is a series of books in the same genre as Carr’s, but it focuses on the broader history—not theology—of the times through the lens of an individual hero.

A few minor criticisms are as follows: The caption on page 4 refers to a map of Great Britain, but the map is actually only of Scotland; In addition, Carr did not mention Boston’s major work Human Nature in its Fourfold State, but this is likely due to her need to be selective in order to weave together a coherent biography for younger readers in a constrained space. She has certainly succeeded in accomplishing that with this excellent introduction to Thomas Boston. Simonetta Carr’s well-researched, clearly written, attractive books educate children on church history from a Reformed perspective, teaching them what we believe and why.

Endnotes

[1] Sinclair Ferguson, The Whole Christ (Ligonier Ministries, 2017).

[2] Travis Bohlinger’s interview with Simonetta Carr, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-TrLMIHdh4.

[3] Carl Trueman’s interview with Simonetta Carr, http://www.mortificationofspin.org/mos/archive/201305.

[4] Trueman’s interview with Simonetta Carr.

Cynthia Rowland is member of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Concord, Massachusetts. Ordained Servant Online, January, 2026