Mark Dever quotes:

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.

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.

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

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.

Prayer is the preview of God's action.

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.

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.

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

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

Correct division should be preferred over corrupt unity.

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

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

Sin claims to free but in fact it kills.

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

By the grace of God I am what I am

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.

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.

Discipling involves instruction and imitation.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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!

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.

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

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

Our fears lie to us about how important they are.

The church is the gospel made visible.

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

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.

Today is what the Lord has prepared you for.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.