Mark Dever Quotes

#1. 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

#2. The church arises only from the gospel. And a distorted church usually coincides with a distorted gospel.

Mark Dever

#3. We do live best in this world when we keep the next in mind.

Mark Dever

#4. Suffering can serve us. Suffering tests our trust in God's promises. And we have a great interest in knowing the truth about our trust in Him.

Mark Dever

#5. Correct division should be preferred over corrupt unity.

Mark Dever

#6. Sin claims to free but in fact it kills.

Mark Dever

#7. The gospel of Christ has never needed the gimmicks of man to effect conversion in the soul

Mark Dever

#8. God's Word has always been His chosen instrument to create, convict, convert, and conform His people.

Mark Dever

#9. not the writings that come from prophets inspired by the one true God revealed in Jesus Christ, then why do we find those passages as proof of who Jesus is?" In other words, they turned the old argument that had been used in the context of Jewish evangelism around. It's not

Mark Dever

#10. Forgetfulness of God's grace is one of the greatest tools in the enemy's war against our souls.

Mark Dever

#11. 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

#12. Prayer is the preview of God's action.

Mark Dever

#13. The first step toward the one true God is to acknowledge that we are not that God.

Mark Dever

#14. Unbelief is like gravity, it's always pulling down on the authority of Scripture.

Mark Dever

#15. A church is not a Fortune 500 company. It's not simply another nonprofit organization, nor is it a social club. In fact, a healthy church is unlike any organization that man has ever devised, because man didn't devise it.

Mark Dever

#16. The church has not been given authority to make commandments; it is the duty of the church to obey the commandments already made. It is not the prerogative nor the privilege of any church to modify, minimize or in any way obscure . . . any commandment, of Jesus Christ.8

Mark Dever

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

Mark Dever

#18. 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

#19. Our fears lie to us about how important they are.

Mark Dever

#20. the most basic level of commitment by a Christian to his church is surprisingly substantial.

Mark Dever

#21. Job learned about the vanity of this world by losing it all; the Teacher {Qoheleth} saw it by having it all." (The Message of the Old Testament, p. 536)

Mark Dever

#22. 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

#23. 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

#24. What about for your church? What boundaries has the gospel overrun that society fiercely respects?

Mark Dever

#25. If you are not a member of the church you regularly attend, you may well be going to hell.

Mark Dever

#26. Today is what the Lord has prepared you for.

Mark Dever

#27. Avoiding the doctrine of Hell is one step away from denying it altogether.

Mark Dever

#28. Again, we are humble because we know we are not the power to change the heart. But we are obedient because we know we are the necessary means ordained by our sovereign God by which the light comes to those in darkness.

Mark Dever

#29. Ultimately, discipling involves living out the whole Christian life before others.

Mark Dever

#30. We are humble because we know we are not the power in salvation. We are obedient because we know we possess the light.

Mark Dever

#31. 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

#32. I'll tell you what's more important than all the commentaries in your library: prayer.

Mark Dever

#33. Christians are defined not by our heritage, but by our mission; not by our blood, but by His.

Mark Dever

#34. According to the New Testament, the church is primarily a body of people who profess and give evidence that they have been saved by God's grace alone, for His glory alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

Mark Dever

#35. Your plans are fine, as long as you realize God has the right to change them.

Mark Dever

#36. 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

#37. A gospel that in no way offends the sinner has not been understood.

Mark Dever

#38. Our examples of enduring hardship are often more powerful than our stories of success and triumph.

Mark Dever

#39. When our eyes fall from God to humanity, social ills replace sin, horizontal problems replace the fundamental vertical problem between us and God, winning elections eclipses winning souls.

Mark Dever

#40. Discipling involves instruction and imitation.

Mark Dever

#41. Humility is not an 'added extra,' one of the lesser Christian virtues. If you don't have humility, you may be lost.

Mark Dever

#42. By the grace of God I am what I am

Mark Dever

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

Mark Dever

#44. Membership is the church's corporate endorsement of a person's salvation.

Mark Dever

#45. 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