D. A. Carson Quotes & Sayings

Sin defies God, utterly corrupts each individual, corrodes all social relationships, and issues in death. — D. A. Carson

A weak understanding of what the Bible says about sin is tied to a weak understanding of what the Bible says is achieved by the cross. — D. A. Carson

Good praying is more easily caught than taught. — D. A. Carson

Our prayers may be an index of how small and self-centered our world is. — D. A. Carson

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. — D. A. Carson

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. — D. A. Carson

The more we get to know God, the more we want to know him better. — D. A. Carson

The unvarnished truth is that what we most frequently give thanks for betrays what we most highly value. If a large percentage of our thanksgiving is for material prosperity, it is because we value material prosperity proportionately. — D. A. Carson

Ordinary Bibles often include cross-references and brief concordances; Study Bibles include much more, all bound up in one fat volume, so that readers can find a lot of useful explanation on each page without having to hunt through Bible dictionaries and commentaries and the like. — D. A. Carson

To God on whom we rely knows what suffering is all about- not merely in the way that God knows everything, but by experience. — D. A. Carson

Justice is not always done in this world; we see that everyday. But on the Last Day it will be done for all to see. And no one will be able to complain by saying, "This isn't fair." — D. A. Carson

Systematic theology will ask questions like "What are the attributes of God? What is sin? What does the cross achieve?" Biblical theology tends to ask questions such as "What is the theology of the prophecy of Isaiah? What do we learn from John's Gospel? How does the theme of the temple work itself out across the entire Bible?" Both approaches are legitimate; both are important. They are mutually complementary. — D. A. Carson

If we remember what we have been called to and devote ourselves to praying for what is best, we may care a little less about the opinions of a secular world and devote ourselves more scrupulously to serving the only Master whose opinion matters. — D. A. Carson

The way to be anxious about nothing is to be prayerful about everything. — D. A. Carson

Do you wish to see God's love? Look at the cross. Do you wish to see God's wrath? Look at the cross. — D. A. Carson

What we actually do reflects our highest priorities. That means we can proclaim our commitment to prayer until the cows come home, but unless we actually pray, our actions disown our words. — D. A. Carson

Some Christians want enough of Christ to be identified with him but not enough to be seriously inconvenienced; they genuinely cling to basic Christian orthodoxy but do not want to engage in serious Bible study; they value moral probity, especially of the public sort, but do not engage in war against inner corruptions; they fret over the quality of the preacher's sermon but do not worry much over the quality of their own prayer life. Such Christians are content with mediocrity. — D. A. Carson

People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated. — D. A. Carson

Sometimes God chooses to bless us and make us people of integrity in the midst of abominable circumstances, rather than change our circumstances. — D. A. Carson

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. — D. A. Carson

Most good evangelical Study Bibles have more in common than people sometimes realize. All of them are committed to explaining the Bible to lay readers. — D. A. Carson

In the moral realm, there is very little consensus left in Western countries over the proper basis of moral behavior. And because of the power of the media, for millions of men and women the only venue where moral questions are discussed and weighed is the talk show, where more often than not the primary aim is to entertain, even shock, not to think. When Geraldo and Oprah become the arbiters of public morality, when the opinion of the latest media personality is sought on everything from abortion to transvestites, when banality is mistaken for profundity because [it's] uttered by a movie star or a basketball player, it is not surprising that there is less thought than hype. Oprah shapes more of the nation's grasp of right and wrong than most of the pulpits in the land. Personal and social ethics have been removed from the realms of truth and structures of thoughts; they have not only been relativized, but they have been democratized and trivialized. — D. A. Carson

From a biblical perspective, the deep question we must ask is what our motives are. There are different kinds of personalities, each with its own strengths. But the question is this: Are we concerned to utilize the gifts and graces God has given us, to utilize them for his glory and for his people's good? Or are we simply interested in doing our own thing? — D. A. Carson

How much would our churches be transformed if each of us made it a practice to thank God for others and then to tell those others what it is about them that we thank God for? — D. A. Carson

He is utterly sovereign over his created order, yet he is nothing less than personal as he deals with me. Sometimes it is more important to worship such a God than to understand him. — D. A. Carson

God's wrath is not an implacable, blind rage. However emotional it may be, it is an entirely reasonable and willed response to offenses against his holiness. But his love ... wells up amidst his perfections and is not generated by the loveliness of the loved. Thus there is nothing intrinsically impossible about wrath and love being directed toward the same individual or people at the same time. God in his perfections must be wrathful against his rebel image-bearers, for they have offended him; God in his perfections must be loving toward his rebel image-bearers, for he is that kind of God — D. A. Carson

God may normally work through ordinary means. But he is not limited by them. That is why all the military muscle in the world cannot itself guarantee victory, and all the secularization, postmodernism, naturalism, and paganism in the world cannot by themselves prevent revival. Let God be God. — D. A. Carson

The place where God has supremely destroyed all human arrogance and pretension is the cross. — D. A. Carson

Christians have learned that when there seems to be no other evidence of God's love, they cannot escape the cross. — D. A. Carson

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. — D. A. Carson

Biblical preaching emphasizes the gospel and constantly elevates Christ crucified. But it also recognizes that the cross is not only our creed, it is the standard of our ministry. — D. A. Carson

Prayer is God's appointed means for appropriating the blessings that are ours in Christ Jesus. — D. A. Carson

If it is hard to accept a rebuke, even a private one, it is harder still to administer one in loving humility. — D. A. Carson

This is not the place to anticipate the discussion, but two things may usefully be said. First, all but the most sanguine pluralists admit that there are immense dangers ahead and that signs of cultural decay abound. — D. A. Carson

It was not nails that held Jesus to that wretched cross; it was his unqualified resolution, out of love for his Father, to do his Father's will-and it was his love for sinners like me. — D. A. Carson

Indeed, if we have experienced anything of the Father's bountiful forgiveness his mercy must become the standard of our own: — D. A. Carson

There is no long-range effective teaching of the Bible that is not accompanied by long hours of ongoing study of the Bible. — D. A. Carson

When we live up to our calling, we remember that in God's church people do not set the agenda, they are the agenda. — D. A. Carson

Jesus is hungry but feeds others; He grows weary but offers others rest; He is the King Messiah but pays tribute; He is called the devil but casts out demons; He dies the death of a sinner but comes to save His people from their sins; He is sold for thirty pieces of silver but gives His life a ransom for many; He will not turn stones to bread for Himself but gives His own body as bread for people. — D. A. Carson

The more clearly we see sins horror, the more we shall treasure the cross. — D. A. Carson

Godliness rests in submission to the Almighty's will, not in intercession that seeks to change that will. — D. A. Carson

"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. — D. A. Carson

Sin corrupts even our good deeds. We injure our shoulder trying to pat ourselves on the back. — D. A. Carson

IN THE MOST CRUCIAL EVENTS IN REDEMPTIVE HISTORY, God takes considerable pains to ensure that no one can properly conclude that these events have been brought about by human resolve or wit. They have been brought about by God himself - on his timing, according to his plan, by his means, for his glory - yet in interaction with his people. All of this falls out of Exodus 2:11-25. — D. A. Carson

Moreover, if we joyfully confess the lordship of Christ, then when we ask what is best for people our answers will be cast in terms of what he thinks is best for people, not necessarily what people think is best for themselves. — D. A. Carson

Effective prayer is the fruit of a relationship with God, not a technique for acquiring blessings. — D. A. Carson

God is absolutely sovereign, but his sovereignty never mitigates human responsibility. — D. A. Carson

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?' — D. A. Carson

This is a point that our generation cannot afford to ignore. Why is it that we constantly parade Christian athletes, media personalities, and pop singers? Why should we think that their opinions or their experiences of grace are of any more significance than those of any other believer? When we tell outsiders about people in our church, do we instantly think of the despised and the lowly who have become Christians, or do we love to impress people with the importance of the men and women who have become Christians? Modern Western evangelicalism is deeply infected with the virus of triumphalism, and the resulting illness destroys humility, minimizes grace, and offers far too much homage to the money and influence and "wisdom" of our day. Paul — D. A. Carson

A prayerless person is a disaster waiting to happen. — D. A. Carson

"Biblical theology" refers to something more precise than theology that is faithful to the Bible. It might be helpful to draw a contrast: at the risk of oversimplification, systematic theology tends to organize theology topically and with an eye cast on its contemporary relevance, while biblical theology tends to organize the same biblical material so that it is easier to see the distinctive contribution of each biblical book and human author, and to trace the trajectories of themes across the Bible so we see how the books of the Bible hold together. — D. A. Carson

Here we do well to remember the frequently quoted words of E. M. Bounds: "One of the constitutional enforcements of the gospel is prayer. Without prayer, the gospel can neither be preached effectively, promulgated faithfully, experienced in the heart, nor be practiced in the life. And for the very simple reason that by leaving prayer out of the catalogue of religious duties, we leave God out, and His work cannot progress without Him."3 — D. A. Carson

There is a second way in which God has "made foolish the wisdom of the world." Granted that through God's wise providence the world has not known him, God determined that some men and women would come to know him - but through a means utterly unexpected and unforeseen by the "wise" people of the world. "God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe" (1:21). We — D. A. Carson

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 — D. A. Carson

Despite the protestations, one sometimes wonders if we are beginning to worship, worship rather than worship God. — D. A. Carson

The way you lose the gospel is not by denying it, but by assuming it. — D. A. Carson

Prayer will never descend to the level where it is nothing more than a retreat house in which we find strength for ourselves, — D. A. Carson

A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text. — D. A. Carson

The Bible is endlessly interesting because it is God's story, and God by nature is himself endlessly interesting. The Bible is an ever-flowing fountain. The more you read it, the more you find its truth and beauty to be inexhaustible. — D. A. Carson

When you are converted, you want to do what you didn't want to do before, and you don't want to do what you wanted to do before. There's a change in the heart; there's a cleaning up, a change in orientation, and holiness becomes attractive, instead of something you have to put up with to figure out what you can get away with. As long as young people are asking, 'Can I get away with this?' or 'Can I get away with that?' I wonder if they're regenerate. If they're asking, instead, 'How can I grow in holiness?' then I suspect they've begun to understand. — D. A. Carson

Effectiveness in teaching the Bible is purchased at the price of much study, some of it lonely, all of it tiring. — D. A. Carson

To know God is to be transformed, and thus to be introduced to a life that could not otherwise be experienced. — D. A. Carson

You cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship and pursue God himself. — D. A. Carson

All of us would be wiser if we would resolve never to put people down, except on our prayer lists. — D. A. Carson

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. — D. A. Carson

The heart of all idolatry in the Bible is the de-godding of God. — D. A. Carson

Moreover, although the people are guilty, Peter understands that it was precisely through the evil execution of Jesus that "God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer" (3:18). That is the supreme irony of all history. — D. A. Carson

God is a talking God, and thus you must come to wrestle with him. You must wrestle with what he said. — D. A. Carson

We overcome the accuser of our brothers and sisters, we overcome our consciences, we overcome our bad tempers, we overcome our defeats, we overcome our lusts, we overcome our fears, we overcome our pettiness on the basis of the blood of the Lamb. — D. A. Carson

Sex is about timing. The world says: any time, any place. God says: my time, my place. — D. A. Carson

However hard some things are to understand, it is never helpful to start picking and choosing biblical truths we find congenial, as if the Bible is an open-shelved supermarket where we are at perfect liberty to choose only the chocolate bars. For the Christian, it is God's Word, and it is not negotiable. What answers we find may not be exhaustive, but they give us the God who is there, and who gives us some measure of comfort and assurance. The alternative is a god we manufacture, and who provides no comfort at all. Whatever comfort we feel is self-delusion, and it will be stripped away at the end when we give an account to the God who has spoken to us, not only in Scripture, but supremely in his Son Jesus Christ. — D. A. Carson

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. — D. A. Carson

Whenever the periphery is in danger of displacing the center, we are not far removed from idolatry. The — D. A. Carson

Although there are things that can be done to enhance corporate worship, there is a profound sense in which excellent worship cannot be attained merely by pursuing excellent worship. In the same way that, according to Jesus, you cannot find yourself until you lose yourself, so also you cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship and pursue God himself. Despite the protestations, one sometimes wonders if we are beginning to worship worship rather than worship God. As a brother put it to me, it's a bit like those who begin by admiring the sunset and soon begin to admire themselves admiring the sunset. — D. A. Carson

Unchecked, the new tolerance will sooner or later put many people in chains. — D. A. Carson

Much praying is not done because we do not plan to pray. We do not drift into spiritual life; we do not drift into disciplined prayer. We will not grow in prayer unless we plan to pray. That means we must self-consciousl y set aside time to do nothing but pray. — D. A. Carson

There is a certain kind of maturity that can be attained only through the discipline of suffering. — D. A. Carson

We do not drift into spiritual life or disciplined prayer. We will not grow in prayer unless we plan to pray. — D. A. Carson

Clearly, we have entered a world very different from the world of modernity as previously described. The subject/object distinction has broken down. In this world, foundationalism is a washout;49 the old distinction between fact and opinion is disappearing from view. The quest for certainty, precision, and ahistorical knowledge of objective truth is judged impossible. "Truth" is not an objective entity; the classic dikes between fact and opinion are springing leaks. Of course, not all the tenets of modernity have been sacrificed. Irrationally, philosophical naturalism (for most advocates of this radical hermeneutics), still holds sway; moreover, I must still say something about the place of science in this new model. But some variation of what once held the status of a minority report advanced only by a few intellectuals is now adopted almost everywhere. — D. A. Carson

The aim is never to become a master of the Word, but to be mastered by it. — D. A. Carson

The worst possible heritage to leave with children: high spiritual pretensions and low performance. — D. A. Carson

We are lost when human opinion means more to us than God's. — D. A. Carson

In this framework, although church discipline is being thought through afresh by many Christian groups,44 one of the areas where more thought is still needed is the manner in which churches that draw lines in the moral arenas - however graciously, humbly, gently, sometimes by degrees, but also firmly - are not only taking steps to align themselves with Scripture (and with the main strands of Christian heritage, for that matter), but are taking on the culture. Such steps become not only a matter of nurturing and protecting the faithful, but of showing a pluralistic world what Christian living looks like. This will alienate some; under God's good hand, it will draw others, not least because the freedoms promised by pluralism are tearing society apart. In any case, we have little choice: elementary faithfulness demands it. — D. A. Carson

Worship is the proper response of all moral, sentient beings to God, ascribing all honor and worth to their Creator-God precisely because he is worthy, delightfully so. — D. A. Carson

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. — D. A. Carson

To assume the gospel in one generation is to lose it in the next. — D. A. Carson

The person who prays more in public than in private reveals that he is less interested in God's approval than in human praise. Not piety but a reputation for piety is his concern. — D. A. Carson

Love the church because Jesus loves it. — D. A. Carson

Some forms of absolutism are not bad; they may even be heroic. — D. A. Carson

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 — D. A. Carson

GOD IS SO WONDERFULLY GENEROUS in his self-disclosure. He has not revealed himself to this race of rebels in some stinting way, but in nature, by his Spirit, in his Word, in great events in redemptive history, in institutions that he ordained to unveil his purposes and his nature, even in our very makeup. (We bear the imago Dei.) — D. A. Carson

The Gospel itself is angular. It always has been. It always conflicts. It always challenges every generation. It challenges different generations in different ways. — D. A. Carson

Indeed, in our day "truth has perished" not only in the sense that integrity is at a low ebb, but as a result of postmodern sensibilities that find it difficult to see what all the fuss is about: all these religious claims are driven by sociological pressures, aren't they, and not by a divine Being who actually speaks objective truth? And so we rush to perdition. — D. A. Carson

The sole heresy has become the view that there is such a thing as heresy. — D. A. Carson

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. — D. A. Carson

If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent an economist. If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician. If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor. But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death; and he sent us a Savior. — D. A. Carson

It's better to emphasize biblical theology, partly because there are fine Study Bibles already available that lean into systematic theology, and partly because biblical theology is particularly strong at helping readers see how the Bible hangs together in its own categories: that is, God in his infinite wisdom chose to give us his Word in the 66 canonical books, with all of their variations in theme, emphasis, vocabulary, literary form, and distinctive contributions across time. — D. A. Carson

The broader problem is that a great deal of popular preaching and teaching uses the bible as a pegboard on which to hang a fair bit of Christianized pop psychology or moralizing encouragement, with very little effort to teach the faithful, from the Bible, the massive doctrines of historic confessional Christianity. — D. A. Carson

That God normally operates the universe consistently makes science possible; that he does not always do so ought to keep science humble. — D. A. Carson

Orthodoxy often requires us to be hard precisely where the world is soft, and soft where the world is hard. It means condemning the homosexual lifestyle and being labeled bigots. It means caring for AIDS patients though many think us fools. It means respecting the rule of law though our culture is increasingly lawless. It means visiting the prisoners who offend that law though our culture would prefer to forget them. In every way that matters, Christianity is an affront to the world; it is countercultural.43 — D. A. Carson