Quote 1829
However hard some things are to understand, it is never helpful to start picking and choosing biblical truths we find congenial, as if the Bible is an open-shelved supermarket where we are at perfect liberty to choose only the chocolate bars. For the Christian, it is God's Word, and it is not negotiable. What answers we find may not be exhaustive, but they give us the God who is there, and who gives us some measure of comfort and assurance. The alternative is a god we manufacture, and who provides no comfort at all. Whatever comfort we feel is self-delusion, and it will be stripped away at the end when we give an account to the God who has spoken to us, not only in Scripture, but supremely in his Son Jesus Christ.
D.A. Carson
Other Quotes from the Author & Topic
How easy it is to read the Scriptures and give a kind of nominal assent to the truth and yet never to appropriate what it tells us!
Scripture0Do not look for the Church nearest to your house. Look for the Church closest to the Bible.
Scripture0Be patient; it is better to be a chastened saint than a carefree sinner.
Patience, Suffering0The heart of true fellowship is self-sacrificing conformity to a shared vision.Basics for Believers (16)
Basics for Believers (16)Fellowship, Church0O my soul, is it possible for thee to hear the excellency of Scripture thus opened to thee, and not to burn in love to it? Hast thou been all this while in such a host bath, and still cold and shivering?The Christian Man\'s Calling
The Christian Man\'s CallingScripture0You cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship and pursue God himself.
Worship0that branch of theology whose concern it is to study each corpus of the scripture in its own right, especially with respect to its place in the history of God's unfolding revelation. The emphasis is on history and on the inddvidual corpus.Unity and Diversity in the New Testament
Unity and Diversity in the New TestamentBiblical Theology0A Christian without a Bible is a soldier without a weapon.The Christian\'s Reasonable Service 1:76
The Christian\'s Reasonable Service 1:76Scripture0The verb krinō ("judge") has a wide semantic range: "judge" (judicially), "condemn," "discern." It cannot here refer to the law courts, any more than 5:33–37 forbids judicial oaths. Still less does this verse forbid all judging of any kind, for the moral distinctions drawn in the Sermon on the Mount require that decisive judgments be made. Jesus himself goes on to speak of some people as dogs and pigs (Mt 7:6) and to warn against false prophets (vv. 15–20). Elsewhere he demands that people "make a right judgment"
Judging0Jesus' demand here is for his disciples not to be judgmental and censorious. The verb krinō has the same force in Romans 14:10–13 (cf. James 4:11–12). The rigor of the disciples' commitment to God's kingdom and the righteousness demanded of them do not authorize them to adopt a judgmental attitude. Those who "judge" like this will in turn be "judged," not by men (which would be of little consequence), but by God (which fits the solemn tone of the discourse). The disciple who takes it on himself to be the judge of what another does usurps the place of God (Rom 14:10) and therefore becomes answerable to him. The hina mē ("in order that … not"; NIV, "or") should therefore be given full telic force: "Do not assume the place of God by deciding you have the right to stand in judgment over all—do not do it, I say, in order to avoid being called to account by the God whose place you usurp"
“Matthew,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 183.
“Matthew,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 183.Judging0God will condemn those by his Word, who will not judge themselves by it.
Scripture0We must allow the Word of God to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior.
Scripture0At the end of the day, the central notion of sin in
Wright's thought is that it is somehow anarchic rebellion against shalom, and the triumph
at the end is the restoration of shalom. What is lost is the intensely personal dimension of
sin: it is rebellion against God, and he is regularly portrayed as the most offended party
(cf. Ps 51!). http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/5581_5877.pdfNew Perspectives0Put the gospel first. And that means you must put the priorities of the gospel at the center of your prayer life.Basics for Believers
Basics for BelieversGospel0Christians need to remember that the sufficiency of Scripture gives us a comprehensive worldview that equips us to wrestle with even the most challenging ethical dilemmas of our time.
Scripture0In short, I will preach it [the Word], teach it, write it, but I will constrain no man by force, for faith must come freely without compulsion. Take myself as an example. I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.
Scripture0The collapse in evangelical doctrinal consensus is intimately related to the collapse in the understanding of, and role assigned to, Scripture as God's Word spoken within the church.Reformation: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Reformation: Yesterday, Today and TomorrowScripture0Many have and many do miserably pervert the Scriptures by turning them into vain and groundless allegories. Some wanton wits have expounded Paradise to be the soul, man to be the mind, the woman to be the sense, the serpent to be delight, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil to be wisdom, and the rest of the trees to be the virtues and endowments of the mind. O friends! It is dangerous to bring in allegories where the Scripture doth not clearly and plainly warrant them and to take those words figuratively which should be taken properly.
Scripture0Search the Scriptures daily, as mines of gold wherein the heart of Christ is laid.
Scripture0The reading of the Scriptures is nothing else but a kind of holy conference with God, wherein we inquire after and He reveals unto us Himself and His will; we shall manifest more fully hereafter, when we shall show that these holy writings are the Word of God Himself, who speaks unto us in and by them. Wherefore when we take in hand the book of the Scriptures, we cannot otherwise conceive of ourselves then as standing in God's presence to hear what He will say unto us. Way to the Tree of Life
Way to the Tree of LifeScripture0He that is mighty in Scripture is the man that can hit this unclean bird in the eye and wound it mortally with one blow (Acts 18:28). Even women, that are the weaker sex, with this sword in their hands, having learned from the Spirit how to use it, have encountered with great doctors, disarmed them of all their philosophical weapons, and shamefully foiled them.
Scripture0Jewels do not lie upon the surface; you must get into the caverns and dark receptacles of the earth for them. No more do truths lie in the surface and outside of an expression. The beauty and glory of the Scriptures is within and must be fetched out with much study and prayer.
Scripture0The testimony of the church is highly to be reverenced because to it are these oracles of God delivered to be kept as a sacred deposit; yea, it is called "the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15) and the candlestick (Rev. 1:12) from whence the light of the Scriptures shines forth into the world. But who will say that the proclamation of a prince hath its authenticity from the pillar it hangs on in the market cross or that the candle hath its light from the candlestick! The office of the church is ministerial, to publish and make known the word of God; but not magisterial and absolute to make it Scripture or unmake it, as she is pleased to allow or deny.
Scripture0