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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?

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
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
Damn all false dichotomies to hell
D. A. CARSON

Damn Dichotomy Hell
The 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. CARSON

Hate Liars Wrath
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;
D. A. CARSON

Jesus Kings People
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
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
Failure to believe stems from moral failure to recognize the truth, not from want of evidence, but from willful neglect or distortion of the evidence.
D. A. CARSON

Believe Evidence Moral Want
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

Doe Humble Ought
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
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
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
There is a certain kind of maturity that can be attained only through the discipline of suffering.
D. A. CARSON

Christian Discipline Maturity
The more clearly we see sins horror, the more we shall treasure the cross.
D. A. CARSON

Horror Sin Treasure
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
A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text.
D. A. CARSON

Context Pretext Proof

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?

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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?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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