Quotes from Mark Dever

When the Bible speaks of love, it measures it primarily not by how much you want to receive but by how much you are willing to give of yourself to someone. How much are you willing to lose for the sake of this person? How much of your freedom are you willing to forsake? How much of your precious time, emotion, and resources are you willing to invest for this person?

Whatsoever we give the supremacy of the inward man to, whatsoever we love most, whatsoever we trust most, whatsoever we fear most, whatsoever we joy and delight most, whatsoever we obey most—that is our god."117 In the end, one's love indicates one's God118—for no human lives without loving.119

Too often Christians today have only two gears on their theological bike: essential and unimportant. If something is not essential for salvation, it is treated as unimportant and therefore dismissable. But the Bible presents us with a number of matters that are not essential for salvation but which nonetheless are important, even necessary, for obedience to God's Word.

As he said, "we should have a double eye: one eye to see that which is amiss in us, our own imperfections, thereby to carry ourselves in a perpetual humility; but another eye of faith, to see what we have in Christ, our perfection in him.

It is only in the context of understanding something of God's character, of his righteousness and perfection, that we begin to understand the tremendous nature of saying that God truly is love, and his love has a depth, texture, fullness, and beauty to it that we, in our present state, can only begin to wonder at.

But if you establish the priority of the Word, then you have in place the single most important aspect of the church's life, and growing health is virtually assured because God has decided to act by his Spirit through his Word.

To be evangelism, the gospel must be clearly communicated, whether in written or oral form.

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

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

I know the vanity of your heart, and that you will feel mortified that your congregation is very small, in comparison with those of your brethren around you; but assure yourself on the word of an old man, that when you come to give an account of them to the Lord Christ, at his judgment-seat, you will think you have had enough.

The fundamental response to God's radical love for us is for us to radically love him.

Our churches, too, must recover the centrality of the Word in our worship. Music is a biblically required response to God's Word, but the music God gave us was not given to build our churches upon. A church built on music - of whatever style - is a church built on shifting sands.