Daniel L. Akin > Quotes

“When we approach theology as facts to look at, it is easy to allow certain theological debates to replace Scripture as our primary theological subject matter. These debates—such as the categorization of God’s attributes, the nature of predestination, the age of the earth, and the continuation of certain spiritual gifts—are not unimportant issues, and sometimes the church must return to them for extended theological reflection. However, the church’s mission is derailed when theology becomes little more than a discipline helping people know what to believe about these particular issues. These debates are necessary to the task of theology, but they are not primary. The primary role of theology is to cultivate in us a love for and knowledge of”
― Daniel L. Akin, A Theology for the Church

“When we consecrate ourselves to God, we think we are making a great sacrifice, and doing lots for Him, when really we are only letting go of some little bitsy trinkets we have been grabbing, and when our hands are empty, He fills them full of His treasure. ~ Betty Stam”
― Daniel L. Akin, 10 Who Changed the World

“If your conception of God is radically false, then the more devout you are, the worse it will be for you. You are opening your soul to be molded by something base. You had much better be an atheist.”72”
― Daniel L. Akin, A Theology for the Church

“Your life of indifference to the risen Christ and of halfhearted attention now and then to a few of his commandments will appear on that day as supremely blameworthy and infinitely foolish, and you will . . . weep that you did not change.”8”
― Daniel L. Akin, Ten Who Changed the World

“I am this day seventy years old, a monument of Divine mercy and goodness, though on a review of my life I find much, very much, for which I ought to be humbled in the dust; my direct and positive sins are innumerable, my negligence in the Lord’s work has been great, I have not promoted his cause, nor sought his glory and honor as I ought, notwithstanding all this, I am spared till now, and am still retained in his Work, and I trust I am received into the divine favor through him. I wish to be more entirely dovoted to his service, more completely sanctified and more habitually exercising all the Christian graces, and bringing forth the fruits of righteousness to the praise and honor of that Savior who gave his life a sacrifice for sin.”
― Daniel L. Akin, Ten Who Changed the World

“gripped by the words of our Savior, he said: “I care not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through, so that I could but gain souls for Christ. While I was asleep I dreamed of these things, and when I awoke the first thing I thought of was this great work. All my desire was for the conversion of the heathen, and all my hope was in God.”
― Daniel L. Akin, Ten Who Changed the World

“In much contemporary theology today, the note of God’s grandeur, greatness, and glory that so fills the Bible is noticeably missing.”
― Daniel L. Akin, Exalting Jesus in Revelation

“Because of our finitude and sinfulness, we readily admit the limitations of our knowledge of God. Although we cannot know him exhaustively, we can know him truly. We are his image bearers, created to receive divine revelation. We can know propositional truth about our God, and we can know personally and intimately the God who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
― Daniel L. Akin, A Theology for the Church

“remains a merely spiritual reality. But when we preach that Christ has become a particular man in a particular place issuing particular commands and dying on a particular cross exposing the particular sins of our particular lives, then the preaching ceases to be acceptable for many.”
― Daniel L. Akin, Exalting Jesus in 1,2,3 John

“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.”
― Daniel L. Akin, A Theology for the Church

“What we believe about Jesus—who he is and what he did—will shape greatly the rest of our theology”
― Daniel L. Akin, Christology: The Study of Christ

“Our affairs rest in the hands not of men but of God! Hence, when the world is enkindling the flames of hatred and slaughter and when the earth is drenched with blood, may our tear-dimmed eye catch a vision of The Throne which rules the universe. In the midst of trial and tribulation may our gaze be riveted upon the One who is King of kings and Lord of lords.”
― Daniel L. Akin, Exalting Jesus in Revelation

“Theological truth reminds us that we are not defined by all that we can do for Jesus, but by all that Jesus has done for us.”
― Daniel L. Akin, Pastoral Theology: Theological Foundations for Who a Pastor is and What He Does

“Honest evaluation is essential for spiritual restoration. Spiritual compromise and complacency are “spiritual cataracts” that shut out the light of spiritual sight. Regularly, daily, we need to ask the Lord—in prayer and by the Word—“Show me my true spiritual condition. Reveal to me my spiritual blind spots and areas of sin where I no longer see. Help me, Lord, to see myself as You see me!”
― Daniel L. Akin, Exalting Jesus in Revelation

“Any church that is not seriously involved in helping fulfill the Great Commission has forfeited its biblical right to exist” (Newell, Mission Quotes, 257).”
― Daniel L. Akin, Exalting Jesus in Revelation

“The God of the Bible is the God with whom we have to do in life and death, in time and eternity, the God to whom we must all give an account and whom no one can escape. Every human being, Calvin says, has negotium cum deo, “business with God.” (Ibid., 160)”
― Daniel L. Akin, Exalting Jesus in Revelation

“Our relationship with Jesus and with all of our brothers and sisters will be so intense and so filled with love and affection that all earthly marital bliss will seem shallow and small in comparison.”
― Daniel L. Akin, Exalting Jesus in Mark

“The lives of Christians together display visibly the gospel they proclaim audibly.”
― Daniel L. Akin, A Theology for the Church

“Don’t look down on death, but welcome it. It too is one of the things required by nature. Like youth and old age. Like growth and maturity. Like a new set of teeth, a beard, the first gray hair. Like sex and pregnancy and childbirth. Like all the other physical changes at each stage of life, our dissolution is no different. So this is how a thoughtful person should await death: not with indifference, not with impatience, not with disdain, but simply viewing it as one of those things that happen to us. Now you anticipate the child’s emergence from its mother’s womb; that’s how you should await the hour when your soul will emerge from its compartment.”
― Daniel L. Akin, A Theology for the Church

“The church is the gospel made visible.”
― Daniel L. Akin, A Theology for the Church

“I care not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through, so that I could but gain souls for Christ. While I was asleep I dreamed of these things, and when I awoke the first thing I thought of was this great work. All my desire was for the conversion of the heathen, and all my hope was in God.”11”
― Daniel L. Akin, Ten Who Changed the World

“Our greatest threats to spiritual health and life are not opposition or even persecution from unbelieving, evil, and wicked men energized by Satan. Rather, it is when we allow into our community of faith spiritual Trojan horses that will sow seeds of destruction given the opportunity.”
― Daniel L. Akin, Exalting Jesus in Revelation

“our knowledge of God is not subjectively discerned. It is objectively informed and spiritually confirmed through God’s accommodating work of self-disclosure, or “revelation.”
― Daniel L. Akin, Pastoral Theology: Theological Foundations for Who a Pastor is and What He Does

“Conscience is God speaking within us, but, because of man’s apostasy from God, it often delivers false oracles,”
― Daniel L. Akin, A Theology for the Church

“Almost everyone believes that prayer is important. But there is a difference between believing that prayer is important and believing it is essential. “Essential” means there are things that will not happen without prayer. (Newell, Expect Great Things, 225)”
― Daniel L. Akin, Exalting Jesus in Daniel

“Scripture, the Word of God, has always had an indispensable role in the formation of the people of God, regardless of covenantal context, for by it the character and works of God are revealed and explained, and through it people are called to a life of faith, devotion, and obedience.”
― Daniel L. Akin, A Theology for the Church

“Independence Day for the Christian is not marked by a flag. No, our independence day is Easter, marked by a cross and an empty tomb.”
― Daniel L. Akin, Exalting Jesus in Mark

“The diminution of the Spirit’s sovereignty may be seen in Arminius’s Letter on the Sin Against the Holy Ghost.”
― Daniel L. Akin, A Theology for the Church

“rituals have no real meaning unless they are expressions of our love for Jesus and others.”
― Daniel L. Akin, Exalting Jesus in Mark