black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

We want to fan the flames of Christians for whom inerrancy and the authority of Scripture are not mere shibboleths, but part of her life beat, part of the beating heart of what makes them tick.

D. A. Carson

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.
D. A. CARSON

Awkward People Writing
Both God’s love and God’s wrath are ratcheted up in the move from the old covenant to the new, from the Old Testament to the New. These themes barrel along through redemptive history, unresolved, until they come to a resounding climax – in the cross.
D. A. CARSON

Covenant Moving Wrath
We want to fan the flames of Christians for whom inerrancy and the authority of Scripture are not mere shibboleths, but part of her life beat, part of the beating heart of what makes them tick.
D. A. CARSON

Beaten Christian Heart Son
Some people say What’s the use of the term if it has to be so fully documented and constrained and footnoted and all the rest.
D. A. CARSON

Doe People Philosophical
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.
D. A. CARSON

Heart Long People
Damn all false dichotomies to hell
D. A. CARSON

Damn Dichotomy Hell
The more we get to know God, the more we want to know him better.
D. A. CARSON

God Knowing Knows Want
A billion years or so into eternity, how many toys we accumulated during this life will not seem too terribly important.
D. A. CARSON

Important Toy Years
Effective prayer is the fruit of a relationship with God, not a technique for acquiring blessings.
D. A. CARSON

Blessing Prayer Technique
A little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.
D. A. CARSON

Courage God Little Love Sympathy
I suspect that relatively few people will sit down and read 1250 pages [ of The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures.] all the way through from cover to cover.
D. A. CARSON

Book Christian People
It’s not as if the New Testament writers came along and said, “The culmination of Old Testament books is more books, New Testament books.”
D. A. CARSON

Book Father Son
It’s just that the group has accepted that document as authoritative for their group. And some documents are truthful and reliable but they are ignored, so they have no authority for that particular group.
D. A. CARSON

Accept Group Particular Truthful
To worship God ‘in spirit and in truth’ is first and foremost a way of saying that we must worship God by means of Christ. In him the reality has dawned and the shadows are being swept away (Hebrews 8:13).
D. A. CARSON

Christian Mean Reality
God has disclosed of himself in human words with such magnificent self accommodation to our limitations. Precisely so that we may be his holy people and reverence everything that he says, cherish it, value it, and thus live it out.
D. A. CARSON

Limitation May People Self
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

Approval Prayer Reputation
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.
D. A. CARSON

Evil Gentleman Play
A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text.
D. A. CARSON

Context Pretext Proof
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

Bread People Sold Stones
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.
D. A. CARSON

Away Change Figure Orientation People
To know God is to be transformed, and thus to be introduced to a life that could not otherwise be experienced.
D. A. CARSON

Father God Knowing Loving Resolution
Christians come together because they have all been loved by Jesus himself. They are a band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus’ sake.
D. A. CARSON

Another Christian Come Sake
Some have argued that the Christian notion of Scripture is not epistemologically sustainable. It’s not philosophically possible with rigor to uphold the Christian understanding of Scripture.
D. A. CARSON

Christian Scripture Understanding
Any term can be distorted or domesticated or fly off the handle because of another alien philosophical structure that’s imposed on the text and so on. Inerrancy is no different from what we find in every other theologically loaded word.
D. A. CARSON

Different Domesticated Form Philosophical
What the Bible says is what God has disclosed and we want to approach this sacred text with cognitive reverence.
D. A. CARSON

Reverence Sacred Want
True freedom is not the liberty to do anything we please, but the liberty to do what we ought; and it is genuine liberty because doing what we ought now pleases us
D. A. CARSON

Genuine Liberty Please
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

Christian Jesus Winning

We want to fan the flames of Christians for whom inerrancy and the authority of Scripture are not mere shibboleths, but part of her life beat, part of the beating heart of what makes them tick.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

We want to fan the flames of Christians for whom inerrancy and the authority of Scripture are not mere shibboleths, but part of her life beat, part of the beating heart of what makes them tick.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More D. A. Carson Quotes