70 Spiritual D. A. Carson Quotes on Prayer and Gospel Centrality

Don (D. A.) Carson is a famous Reformed evangelical theologian at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School known for his balanced approach to theological disputes while standing firm on the essentials of faith.

Carson is open yet cautious on charismatic issues supports gender-neutral Bible translations and contributed to the New Living Translation (NLT).

D. A. Carson

He is a complementarian and has published numerous titles on various theological subjects including free will predestination biblical theology and the historical Jesus while contributing to several scholarly societies in the field of Biblical research.

In his personal life Carson enjoys spending time with his family in Libertyville Illinois indulging in hobbies such as reading hiking and woodworking.

In this article, I have curated the best quotes by D A Carson.


Best D. A. Carson Quotes

Best D. A. Carson Quotes

Be patient; it is better to be a chastened saint than a carefree sinner. ~ D A Carson.

All of us would be wiser if we would resolve never to put people down, except on our prayer lists. ~ D A Carson.

If it is hard to accept a rebuke, even a private one, it is harder still to administer one in loving humility. ~ D A Carson.

Public prayer ought to be the overflow of one’s private praying. ~ D. A. Carson.

In all our pursuit of excellence, we must never worship excellence. That would simply be idolatrous. ~ D A Carson.

God’s purpose for the men and women he redeems is not simply to have them believe certain truths but to transform them in a lifelong process that stretches toward heaven. ~ D A Carson.

It is a cheap zeal that reserves its passions to combat only the sins and temptations of others. ~ D A Carson.

We are not saved by theological ideas about Christ; we are saved by Christ himself. ~ D. A. Carson.

At heart, therefore, they really have grasped the message of Christ crucified, even if they have not brought their lives into conformity with this message. ~ D A Carson.

There is a certain kind of maturity that can be attained only through the discipline of suffering. ~ D A Carson.

Christians have learned that when there seems to be no other evidence of God’s love, they cannot escape the cross. ~ D A Carson.

Ordinary Bibles often include cross-references and brief concordances; Study Bibles include much more, all bound up in one fat volume, so that readers can find a lot of useful explanation on each page without having to hunt through Bible dictionaries and commentaries and the like. ~ D A Carson.

Top D. A. Carson Quotes

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.

It is easy to sound prophetic from the margins; what is urgently needed is to be prophetic from the center. ~ D. A. Carson.

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.

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.

Prayer is not like a good recipe: simply follow a set of mechanical directions and everything turns out right in the end. ~ D. A. Carson.

Effective prayer is the fruit of a relationship with God, not a technique for acquiring blessings. ~ D A Carson.

How much would our churches be transformed if each of us made it a practice to thank God for others and then to tell those others what it is about them that we thank God for? ~ D A Carson.

Do you wish to see God’s love? Look at the cross. Do you wish to see God’s wrath? Look at the cross. ~ D A Carson.

The Gospel itself is angular. It always has been. It always conflicts. It always challenges every generation. It challenges different generations in different ways. ~ D. A. Carson.

Popular D. A. Carson Quotes

In a theistic universe, there can be nothing worse than being truly abandoned by God himself. The worst of hell’s torments is that men and women are truly abandoned by God. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. ~ D A Carson.

If we harbor bitterness and resentment, praying is little more than wasted time and effort. ~ D A Carson.

Sin corrupts even our good deeds. We injure our shoulder trying to pat ourselves on the back. ~ D A Carson.

To walk into the unknown with a God of unqualified power and unfailing goodness is safer than a known way. ~ D A Carson.

A prayerless person is a disaster waiting to happen. ~ D A Carson.

The only thing of transcendent importance to human beings is the knowledge of God. This knowledge does not belong to those who endlessly focus on themselves. Those who truly come to know God delight just to know him. He becomes their center. They think of him, delight in him, boast of him. ~ D A Carson.

Faithful Christian leaders must make the connections between creed and conduct, between the cross and how to live. And they must exemplify this union in their own lives. In. ~ D A Carson.

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.

We do not drift into spiritual life or disciplined prayer. We will not grow in prayer unless we plan to pray. ~ D A Carson.

Famous D. A. Carson Quotes

The gospel of the crucified Messiah must transform not only our beliefs but our behavior. ~ D A Carson.

We need not think that the only sins that will keep us from prayer are large and gross. We so often fall at the subtle points. ~ D A Carson.

The unvarnished truth is that what we most frequently give thanks for betrays what we most highly value. ~ D. A. Carson.

Most good evangelical Study Bibles have more in common than people sometimes realize. All of them are committed to explaining the Bible to lay readers. ~ D A Carson.

Either worrying drives out prayer, or prayer drives out worrying. ~ D A Carson.

Some forms of absolutism are not bad; they may even be heroic. ~ D A Carson.

God’s valuation of his people is established by his valuation of Christ. ~ D A Carson.

What we actually do reflects our highest priorities. That means we can proclaim our commitment to prayer until the cows come home, but unless we actually pray, our actions disown our words. ~ D A Carson.

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.

Prayer is God’s appointed means for appropriating the blessings that are ours in Christ Jesus. ~ D. A. Carson.

On the last day, God will ask, in effect, what have you done with the salvation I bestowed on you? ~ D A Carson.

Great D. A. Carson Quotes

The aim is never to become a master of the Word, but to be mastered by it. ~ D A Carson.

To know God is to be transformed, and thus to be introduced to a life that could not otherwise be experienced. ~ D A Carson.

We cannot justify our relative prayerlessness by saying that those who are peculiarly effective are more gifted than we. ~ D. A. Carson.

Hell is not filled with people who are deeply sorry for their sins. It is filled with people who for all eternity still shake their puny fist in the face of God Almighty. ~ D. A. Carson.

Despite the protestations, one sometimes wonders if we are beginning to worship, worship rather than worship God. ~ D A Carson.

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.

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.

The way you lose the gospel is not by denying it, but by assuming it. ~ D A Carson.

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.

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.

Public praying is a pedagogical opportunity. ~ D. A. Carson.

Wise D. A. Carson Quotes

The truth of the matter is that all we have to do is live long enough and we will suffer. ~ D A Carson.

Sin defies God, utterly corrupts each individual, corrodes all social relationships, and issues in death. ~ D A Carson.

The more clearly we see sins horror, the more we shall treasure the cross. ~ D A Carson.

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.

Good praying is more easily caught than taught. ~ D. A. Carson.

We are lost when human opinion means more to us than God’s. ~ D A Carson.

You cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship and pursue God himself. ~ D A Carson.

A billion years or so into eternity, how many toys we accumulated during this life will not seem too terribly important. ~ D A Carson.

Spiritual D. A. Carson Quotes

When God finds us so puffed up that we do not feel our need for him, it is an act of kindness on his part to take us down a peg or two; it would be an act of judgment to leave us in our vaulting self-esteem. ~ D A Carson.

Worship is the proper response of all moral, sentient beings to God, ascribing all honor and worth to their Creator-God precisely because he is worthy, delightfully so. ~ D A Carson.

If the text is God’s Word, it is appropriate that we respond with reverence, a certain fear, a holy joy, a questing obedience. ~ D A Carson.

At the end of the day, prime allegiance must be to God himself, to God alone. ~ D A Carson.

Effectiveness in teaching the Bible is purchased at the price of much study, some of it lonely, all of it tiring. ~ D A Carson.

The place where God has supremely destroyed all human arrogance and pretension is the cross. ~ D A Carson.

Top D. A. Carson Quotes

A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text. ~ D A Carson.

Our prayers may be an index of how small and self-centered our world is. ~ D A Carson.

Sin is social: although it is first and foremost defiance of God, there is no sin that does not touch the lives of others. Even. ~ D A Carson.


So these were the 70 top D. A. Carson quotes and sayings on prayer, Christ and Gospel Centrality.

If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read my other posts on Napoleon Dynamite quotes and Diogenes quotes.

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Chandan Negi
Chandan Negi

I’m the Founder of Internet Pillar - I love sharing quotes and motivational content to inspire and motivate people - #quotes #motivation #internetpillar