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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

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

Cost Heaven Lying
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
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

Fountain Interesting Stories
Study Bibles tend to circulate widely, so they play a disproportionate role in helping Christians and others understand holy Scripture.
D. A. CARSON

Christian Holy Play Scripture Two
My response to that is: there is no theological word that does not have to be similarly footnoted and constrained: justification, spirit, sanctification etc.
D. A. CARSON

Footnoted Justification Sanctification Similarly
A prayerless person is a disaster waiting to happen.
D. A. CARSON

Disaster Persons Waiting
Good praying is more easily caught than taught.
D. A. CARSON

Caught Praying Taught
Effectiveness in teaching the Bible is purchased at the price of much study, some of it lonely, all of it tiring.
D. A. CARSON

Effectiveness Lonely Teaching
The more we get to know God, the more we want to know him better.
D. A. CARSON

God Knowing Knows Want
When Christians speak of the authority of Scripture, because Christians believe that this word, even though it’s mediated through many different human authors.
D. A. CARSON

Believe Christian Mistake
Our prayers may be an index of how small and self-centered our world is.
D. A. CARSON

Our Prayer Self World
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
How 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. CARSON

Dicatted Example God Memorize Person
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
God is absolutely sovereign, but his sovereignty never mitigates human responsibility.
D. A. CARSON

Responsibility Sovereign Sovereignty
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
Love the church because Jesus loves it.
D. A. CARSON

Church Jesus Love
For the far higher task of teaching fortitude and patience I was never fool enough to suppose myself qualified, nor have I anything to offer my readers except my conviction that when pain is to be borne.
D. A. CARSON

Love Pain Teaching
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

Long Teaching
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
We are lost when human opinion means more to us than God’s.
D. A. CARSON

Lost Mean Opinion
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

Biblical Important Systematic
Sex is about timing. The world says: any time, any place. God says: my time, my place.
D. A. CARSON

Sex Timing World
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
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
Many of us in our praying are like nasty little boys who ring front door bells and run away before anyone answers.
D. A. CARSON

Boys Doors Running
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

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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