Inspirational Quotes by D.A. Carson

“At the end of the day, prime allegiance must be to God himself, to God alone.”

“The gospel of the crucified Messiah must transform not only our beliefs but our behavior.”

“At heart, therefore, they really have grasped the message of Christ crucified, even if they have not brought their lives into conformity with this message.”

“It is the truth and power of the gospel that must change people’s lives, not the glamour of our oratory or the emotional power of our stories.”

“God’s valuation of his people is established by his valuation of Christ.”

“Christians refuse to believe that there are only two options in engaging our culture: either to assimilate or to separate, to capitulate or to evade, to over-contextualize or to under-adapt. Jeremiah 29 encourages God’s people not to accommodate the foreign culture but to move in and get involved in the life of the city economically and culturally. The prophet is asking the people to be spiritually bicultural. They are being called neither to worship”

“The heart of our lostness is our profound self-focus. We do not want to know him, if knowing him is on his terms. We are happy to have a god we can more or less manipulate; we do not want a god to whom we admit that we are rebels in heart and mind, that we do not deserve his favor, and that our only hope is in his pardoning and transforming grace.”

“Indeed I believe one of the greatest dangers the body of Christ faces today is the temptation to rethink and rearticulate the gospel in a way that makes its center something other than the death of Jesus on the cross in the place of sinners.”

“He knew how much pride his people took him being forever misunderstood.”

“God answered prayers first by teaching the need to ask, second by using friends as holy messengers.”

“He used a minimum of words and no inflection whatsoever. It was a policeman's manner of speaking, direct and unadorned.”

“Revive me, O LORD, according to Your word. 108Accept, I pray, the freewill offerings of my mouth, O LORD, And teach me Your judgments. 109My life is continually in my hand, Yet I do not forget Your law. 110The wicked have laid a snare for me, Yet I have not strayed from Your precepts. 111Your testimonies I have taken as a heritage forever, For they are the rejoicing of my heart. 112I have inclined my heart to perform Your statutes Forever, to the very end.”

“Proverbs 29:23 23A man’s pride will bring him low, But the humble in spirit will retain honor.”

“As creatures made in the image of a moral God, we are incapable of not making moral judgments, whatever our situation. A church that thinks it has gotten beyond last generation’s debates over music and wine will find that this generation’s debates over recycling and child discipline are just as divisive. A believer who has prided himself on being generous on disputable matters will suddenly find himself judging a fellow believer who doesn’t buy fair-trade coffee. Conscience issues will remain an important part of your personal life, your church life, and your ministry life for the rest of your life.”

“It shouldn’t surprise you that you have a conscience. You’re made in the image of God, and God is a moral God, so you must be a moral creature who makes moral judgments.”

“Christian freedom is not “I always do what I want.” Nor is it “I always do whatever the other person wants.” It is “I do what brings glory to God. I do what brings others under the influence of the gospel. I do what leads to peace in the church (p. 115).”

“Don’t roll your eyes. This question may make you “face palm” in amazement at how strange someone else’s conscience might be. That’s typically how someone with a strong conscience reacts when they hear about the scruples of the weak. But to the weak of conscience, these are life-and-death matters. Conscience is always a life-and-death matter since sinning against it is always a sin, and getting used to sinning against conscience in one area will make it easier to sin against conscience in other areas. The strong must not look down on the weak but bear with them (Romans 15:1) and, if opportunity arises, gently help them calibrate their conscience (p. 79).”

“Briefly, the Regulative Principle states that everything we do in a corporate worship gathering must be clearly warranted by Scripture. Clear warrant can either take the form of an explicit biblical command, or a good and necessary implication of a biblical text.”

“But if you define success in terms of faithfulness, then you are in a position to persevere, because you are released from the demand of immediately observable results, freeing you for faithfulness to the Gospel’s message and methods, leaving numbers to the Lord.”

“We do not speak for Christ because we do not so love his name that we cannot bear to see him unacknowledged and unadored. If only our eyes were opened to see his glory, and if only we felt wounded by the shame of his public humiliation among men, we should not be able to remain silent. Rather would we echo the apostles’ words [in Acts 4 v 20]: “we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”