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A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text.

D. A. Carson

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
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 may be some, but not everybody. But there are many, many, many different Christian, theological, pastoral, specialisms that are covered by one section or another of the book and this will become, therefore, a resource volume for many people.
D. A. CARSON

Become Book Christian Different Everybody Section
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
Our prayers may be an index of how small and self-centered our world is.
D. A. CARSON

Our Prayer Self World
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
The more clearly we see sins horror, the more we shall treasure the cross.
D. A. CARSON

Horror Sin Treasure
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.
D. A. CARSON

Artists Doctors Economist Profound
God’s love in John 3:16 is not amazing because the world is so big, but because the world is so bad.
D. A. CARSON

Bigs God Love World
We are lost when human opinion means more to us than God’s.
D. A. CARSON

Lost Mean Opinion
We are dealing with God’s thoughts: we are obligated to take the greatest pains to understand them truly and to explain them clearly.
D. A. CARSON

Effective Greatest Pain Teaching
Make a mistake in the interpretation of one of Shakespeare’s plays, falsely scan a piece of Spenserian verse, and there is unlikely to be an entailment of eternal consequence; but we cannot lightly accept a similar laxity in the interpretation of Scripture.
D. A. CARSON

Mistake Pain Play
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.
D. A. CARSON

Book Magic Pieces
A prayerless person is a disaster waiting to happen.
D. A. CARSON

Disaster Persons Waiting
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
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

A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text.

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A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text.

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