D. A. Carson Quotes
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I can say that it's 10 miles from my home to Trinity, when in fact that's not quite right, it's off by about 10%, but nobody would say that I'm telling a lie or making a mistake when I rounded off because that's the way we speak and rounded off terms regularly.
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Not all Scripture is propositional, some of it is asking questions, some of it's rhetorical, but where Scripture is stating something, asserting something, making a truth claim, uttering a proposition that is claiming to be true, it is the truth.
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Damn all false antitheses to hell, for they generate false gods, they perpetuate idols, they twist and distort our souls, they launch the church into violent pendulum swings who oscillations succeed only in dividing brothers and sisters in Christ
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We treat the Bible, not as if it's a magic book that has to be handled like a piece of abracadabra, make sure it's dusted, never put it on the floor, and things like that.
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I do think that there is a hunger in the land for a vision of confessional Christianity that is robust, God-centered, tough-minded, able to address today and tomorrow and the next day, and comprehensive.
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The Gospel itself is angular. It always has been. It always conflicts. It always challenges every generation. It challenges different generations in different ways.
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There needs to be a place in the church or just outside - there needs to be a place where people feel free to ask questions without being put upon, where they feel free to ask difficult, challenging questions to voice their skepticism.
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The Christian's whole desire, at its best and highest, is that Jesus Christ be praised. It is always a wretched bastardization of our goals when we want to win glory for ourselves instead of for him.
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No one believes more strongly than I do that every Christian should be a theologian. In that sense, we all need to work it out. I want all Christians who can read, to read their Bibles and to read beyond the Bible - to read the history and theology.
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Hell is not filled with people who are deeply sorry for their sins. It is filled with people who for all eternity still shake their puny fist in the face of God Almighty.
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The person who loves his life will lose it: it could not be otherwise, for to love one's life is a fundamental denial of God's sovereignty, of God's rights, and a brazen elevation of self to the apogee of one's perception, and therefore an idolatrous focus on self, which is the heart of all sin
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Study Bibles tend to circulate widely, so they play a disproportionate role in helping Christians and others understand holy Scripture. Further, many of our members have long used one or two other Study Bibles, and it is important that Christians not be tied too tightly to only one option, however good it may be.
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God is a talking God, and thus you must come to wrestle with him. You must wrestle with what he said.
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Effectiveness in teaching the Bible is purchased at the price of much study, some of it lonely, all of it tiring.
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We are dealing with God's thoughts: we are obligated to take the greatest pains to understand them truly and to explain them clearly.
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The Bible does not tell us that life in this world will be fair. Evil and sin are not Victorian gentlemen; they do not play fair.
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The kingdom of heaven is worth infinitely more than the cost of discipleship, and those who know where the treasure lies joyfully abandon everything else to secure it.
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The important thing, Jesus is saying (in Matthew 5:33-37), is to tell the truth and keep one's pledges without insisting that a certain form of words must be used if it is to be binding. No oath is necessary for the truthful person... Their word is so reliable that nothing more than a statement is needed from them.
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In any Christian view of life, self-fulfillment must never be permitted to become the controlling issue. The issue is service, the service of real people. The question is, 'How can I be most useful?', not, 'How can I feel most useful?'
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When we suffer, there will sometimes be mystery. Will there also be faith? Yes, if our attention is focused more on the cross, and on the God of the cross, than on the suffering itself.
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"Study Bible" is the expression used for Bibles that include significant explanatory notes, usually at the bottom of the page, sometimes in the margins. Often a Study Bible will also include some brief articles, photographs of geographical and archaeological sites, fairly extensive maps, and charts that summarize a lot of information.
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Imagination is a God-given gift; but if it is fed dirt by the eye, it will be dirty. All sin, not least sexual sin, begins with the imagination. Therefore what feeds the imagination is of maximum importance in the pursuit of kingdom righteousness.
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So there are all kinds of things that grammarian purists would argue are awkward forms of speech and sometimes they are intentional for rhetorical effect and sometimes it's the way people chose to write at the time. Inerrancy isn't interested in any of those kinds of things.
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That God normally operates the universe consistently makes science possible; that he does not always do so ought to keep science humble.