Inspirational Quotes by D.A. Carson

“Many who profess faith seem to think that Christianity is something to add to their already busy lives, not something that controls, constrains, and shapes their vision and all of their goals.”

“So here is a lesson: false or improper application of genuine truth may be heartless and cruel—and, as here, it may say false things about God.”

“Christians need the Spirit of God to reveal more of himself and his ways to us, if we are to know God better, for it is the Spirit's task to take things that belong to the domain of God, the domain of glory, and bring them to us so that we can receive them.”

“At the same time, it is hard to miss the element of ownership: these people were acting as though God was so exclusively the property of ancestral Jews that Gentiles could not get a look in. From Paul’s perspective, this entailed a profoundly mistaken and even perverse reading of the Old Testament, and a sadly tribal vision of a domesticated God. Of course, their error is often repeated today, with less justification, by those who so tie their culture to their understanding of Christian religion that the Bible itself becomes domesticated and the missionary impulse frozen.”

“We may desire the power of God so to operate in our lives that we may become more holy; we may ask for power to grasp the limitless dimensions of the love of God--and yet distort these good requests by envisaging their fulfillment within a framework in which the entire universe revolves around our improvement. The root sin is the kind of self-centeredness that wants to usurp God's place. How tragic then if our prayers for good things leave us still thinking of ourselves first, still thinking of God's will primarily in terms of its immediate effect on ourselves, still longing for blessings simply so that we will be blessed.”

“In view of the grace and glory to be lavished on us, for no other reason than that God has made us his inheritance in Christ, we ought to live to God's praise.”

“...the pursuit of what is best can never be carried on without constant appeal to the standard of God's gracious self-disclosure in the Scriptures.”

“many in this generation attend church to find peace and happiness, not pardon and holiness.”

“All of God's sovereignty is mediated through one who was crucified on my behalf. For Christians, that means God's sovereignty can no longer be viewed as a merely credal point, still less as the source of endless mystery. There is more than enough material for credal confession here, and not a little mystery; but these mysteries revolve around one who died in my place. The mysteries of prayer remain, but they dissolve in worship and gratitude.”

“How much have we prayed for what is best [Phil. 1:10] - for a spiritual harvest, for conversions for demonstrations of the fruit of the Spirit? Could it be that we have experienced little because we have asked for little? Is our unfruitfulness proportionate to our prayerlessness?”

“How much have we prayed for what is best [Phil. 1:10] - for a spiritual harvest, for conversions, for demonstrations of the fruit of the Spirit? Could it be that we have experienced little because we have asked for little? Is our unfruitfulness proportionate to our prayerlessness?”

“We have learned to organize, build institutions, publish books, insert ourselves into the media, develop evangelistic strategies, and administer discipleship programs, but we have forgotten how to pray.”

“We serve a God who delights to disclose himself to the contrite, to the lowly of heart, to the meek. When”

“God’s gracious self-disclosure in Scripture can never be adequately assessed by those who insist on being independent knowers: for God to structure his revelation to accommodate such a desire would be to foster the sin from which the gospel frees us. God in his great mercy refuses to pander to our unlimited lust to be gods. He has ensured that his own self-disclosure should be abundantly clear to those who by grace have eyes to see and ears to hear, but can never be as rigorously self-evident as a mathematical theorem where human beings control all the definitions and the rules of the relationships. We walk by faith, and not by sight.”

“In the Bible’s view of the relation between God and his people, we need the help of God’s Holy Spirit to understand the truth as much as we need his help to do the truth.”

“The referent and the means of reference cannot be isolated from each other. They must be distinguished but not detached.”

“All the great doctrinal debates were at their cores debates about the meaning of Scripture.”

“Though often lost sight of today, the self-authenticating quality of Scripture was perhaps surprisingly well recognized, especially among some early Greek writers.”

“Each house looks secure in good weather. But Palestine is known for torrential rains that can turn dry wadis into raging torrents. Only storms reveal the quality of the work of the two builders. The thought reminds us of the parable of the sower, in which the seed sown on rocky ground lasts only a short time, until “trouble or persecution comes because of the word” (13:21). The greatest storm is eschatological (cf. Isa 28:16–17; Eze 13:10–13; see also Pr 12:7). But Jesus’ words about the two houses need not be thus restricted. The point is that the wise man (a repeated term in Matthew; cf. 10:16; 24:45; 25:2, 4, 8–9) builds to withstand anything.”

“It is always much more difficult for Christians to detect a fundamentally sinful attitude in other Christians than in pagans—especially if that attitude is endemic to contemporary society, thereby reducing or eliminating the “shock” force of that sin.”