Mark Dever famous quotes

Pride causes us to care more about what our non-Christian friends think of us than what God will do to them in their sin.
-- Mark Dever

#Christian #Pride #Thinking

Avoiding the doctrine of Hell is one step away from denying it altogether.
-- Mark Dever

#Steps #Doctrine #Hell

We do not fail in our evangelism if we faithfully tell the gospel to someone who is not subsequently converted; we fail only if we do not faithfully tell the gospel at all.
-- Mark Dever

#Failing #Evangelism

A gospel that in no way offends the sinner has not been understood.
-- Mark Dever

#Way #Understood #Sinner

Friend, the church finds its life as it listens to the Word of God. It finds its purpose as it lives out and displays the Word of God. The church’s job is to listen and then to echo.
-- Mark Dever

#Jobs #Echoes #Church

When a person becomes a Christian, he doesn’t just join a local church because it’s a good habit for growing in spiritual maturity. He joins a local church because it’s the expression of what Christ has made him—a member of the body of Christ.
-- Mark Dever

#Christian #Spiritual #Maturity

Your plans are fine, as long as you realize God has the right to change them.
-- Mark Dever

#Long #Realizing #Fine

Today is what the Lord has prepared you for.
-- Mark Dever

#Today #Lord #Prepared

We are all called to initiate involvement in each other’s lives... We covenant together to work and pray for unity, to walk together in love, to exercise care and watchfulness over each other, to faithfully admonish and entreat one another as occasion may require, to assemble together, to pray for each other, to rejoice and to bear with each other, and to pray for God’s help in all this.
-- Mark Dever

#Exercise #Unity #Together

The church arises only from the gospel. And a distorted church usually coincides with a distorted gospel.
-- Mark Dever

#Church #Arise

A healthy church is not a church that's perfect and without sin. It has not figured everything out. Rather, it's a church that continually strives to take God's side in the battle against the ungodly desires and deceits of the world, our flesh, and the devil. It's a church that continually seeks to conform itself to God's Word.
-- Mark Dever

#Perfect #Healthy #Church

God's eternal plan has always been to display his glory not just through individuals but through a corporate body.
-- Mark Dever

#Body #Glory #Individual

We are called to love others. We share the gospel because we love people. And we don't share the gospel because we don't love people. Instead, we wrongly fear them. We don't want to cause awkwardness. We want their respect, and after all, we figure, if we try to share the gospel with them, we'll look foolish! And so we are quiet. We protect our pride at the cost of their souls. In the name of not wanting to look weird, we are content to be complicit in their being lost.
-- Mark Dever

#Pride #Names #People

If you are not a member of the church you regularly attend, you may well be going to hell.
-- Mark Dever

#Church #May #Hell

The church is the gospel made visible.
-- Mark Dever

#Church #Made

Prayer is the preview of God's action.
-- Mark Dever

#Prayer #Action #Preview

As long as quick numerical growth remains the primary indicator of church health, the truth will be compromised. Instead, churches must once again begin measuring success not in terms of numbers but in terms of fidelity to the Scriptures.
-- Mark Dever

#Numbers #Long #Growth

If you think that the gospel is all about what we can do, that the practice of it is optional, and that conversion is simply something that anyone can choose at any time, then I'm concerned that you'll think of evangelism as nothing more than a sales job where the prospect is to be won over to sign on the dotted line by praying a prayer, followed by an assurance that he is the proud owner of salvation.
-- Mark Dever

#Jobs #Prayer #Thinking

If you have no interest in actually committing yourself to an actual group of gospel-believing, Bible-teaching Christians, you might question whether you belong to the body of Christ at all!
-- Mark Dever

#Christian #Believe #Teaching

T]he church is not a place. It's not a building. It's not a preaching point. It's not a spiritual service provider. It's a people - the new covenant, blood-bought people of God. That's why Paul said, 'Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her' (Eph. 5:25). He didn't give himself up for a place, but for a people.
-- Mark Dever

#Spiritual #Blood #People

By the grace of God I am what I am
-- Mark Dever

#Grace #I Am What I Am #Grace Of God

Do you want to know that your new life is real? Commit yourself to a local group of saved sinners. Try to love them. Don’t just do it for three weeks. Don’t just do it for six months. Do it for years. And I think you’ll find out, and others will, too, whether or not you love God. The truth will show itself
-- Mark Dever

#Real #Thinking #Years

Christian proclamation might make the gospel audible, but Christians living together in local congregations make the gospel visible (see John 13:34-35). The church is the gospel made visible.
-- Mark Dever

#Christian #Church #Together

God’s Word has always been His chosen instrument to create, convict, convert, and conform His people.
-- Mark Dever

#People #Instruments #Conform

The truly changed, truly converted, truly Christian heart can say with John Newton, “I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I wish to be. I am not what I hope to be. Yet I can truly say, I am not what I once was. By the grace of God, I am what I am.
-- Mark Dever

#Christian #Heart #Grace

The gospel of Christ has never needed the gimmicks of man to effect conversion in the soul
-- Mark Dever

#Men #Soul #Gimmicks

Forgetfulness of God's grace is one of the greatest tools in the enemy's war against our souls.
-- Mark Dever

#War #Soul #Grace

Discipling involves instruction and imitation.
-- Mark Dever

#Imitation #Instruction

For a Christian, our fears about the future are rooted in those places where our will differs from God's will.
-- Mark Dever

#Christian

Membership is the church's corporate endorsement of a person's salvation.
-- Mark Dever

#Church #Membership #Salvation

Correct division should be preferred over corrupt unity.
-- Mark Dever

#Unity #Division #Should