Effective prayer is the fruit of a relationship with God, not a technique for acquiring blessings.
D. A. CARSONEffective prayer is the fruit of a relationship with God, not a technique for acquiring blessings.
D. A. CARSONIf the text is God’s Word, it is appropriate that we respond with reverence, a certain fear, a holy joy, a questing obedience.
D. A. CARSONThe cliché, God hates the sin but love the sinner, is false on the face of it and should be abandoned. Fourteen times in the first fifty Psalms alone.
D. A. CARSONSome forms of absolutism are not bad; they may even be heroic.
D. A. CARSONA 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. CARSONHow can that be? This is quite a contrast with Islam, for example, which holds that the Koran has been dictated in Arabic by God and as a result Mohammed is nothing more than the one who memorizes the word so as to pass it on. There is nothing of human contribution.
D. A. CARSONThere is a certain kind of maturity that can be attained only through the discipline of suffering.
D. A. CARSONIt 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. CARSONIn every generation there are voices that question the authority of Scripture. So in one sense this is merely part of the continuing stream. But there’s a sense in which the questions that are raised against Scripture vary a wee bit from generation to generation.
D. A. CARSONSo 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.
D. A. CARSONA billion years or so into eternity, how many toys we accumulated during this life will not seem too terribly important.
D. A. CARSONSome Christians want enough of Christ to be identified with him but not enough to be seriously inconvenienced.
D. A. CARSONThe 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. CARSONJesus 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;
D. A. CARSONSex is about timing. The world says: any time, any place. God says: my time, my place.
D. A. CARSONIf you want to see what judgment looks like, go to the cross. If you want to see what love looks like, go to the cross.
D. A. CARSON