Vale, Tim Keller

A personal reflection

I woke on Saturday morning here in Australia to the sad news of the passing of Timothy Keller. I shed some tears, and spent some time in prayer thanking God for his life and ministry.

You can read more than a few moving tributes to him around the internet (I’ve linked a few at the end of this post). Today I want to simply offer some personal reflections. I certainly never met Keller, never heard him speak in person. My encounters with Keller have been through his writings and some sermons.

I think the first time I really encountered Keller was his book, The Reason for God. It came out a time when the New Atheists were big news, and it was an intellectually serious, culturally informed, insightful and persuasive case *for* God. It resonated with me, and I gave a copy to my dad.

Part of Keller's particular genius was always the "third way" approach. Nowhere was this as clear a melody as in his treatment of the parable of the prodigal son, where Keller deftly laid out how the parable speaks not only to the obvious waywardness of the younger son, but the hypocritical self-righteousness of the older son. The gospel, for Keller, always cut both left and right, offering something that was not merely a balance of a 50-50 compromise, but transcending and uniting both, answering our deepest needs. And now I can't read Luke 15 without his approach echoing in my mind.

As a younger preacher I was influenced not so much by listening to Keller or his style, but by a series of lectures by Keller and Edmund Clowney in which they taught a method for redemptive-historical preaching, responsible typology, and presenting Christ in every part of Scripture (This course is available online, it’s Preaching Christ in a Postmodern World). Such an approach continues to shape my own preaching convictions to this day.

It in the last two years that I have read more Keller than perhaps ever before. His book on prayer helped reshape and give content and structure in the renewal of my own prayer life. His books on justice and on preaching have been solid fuel for my mental fire. And his most recent and final book, on forgiveness, has been a tremendous help and salve to me during difficult times. This past two weeks I found myself powerfully moved as I listened to an earlier sermon of his on the topic. His preaching always seems to find the cracks in your armour, and brings the gospel in all its goodness to bear on the depths of your heart.

In reading the recent biography of his intellectual and spiritual formation, and the testimonies and memorials to him today by those who knew him, I think the thing that shines forth most fully, is the gracious man that God formed him to be, and how so humbly and kindly God worked his grace through him to the lives of many. He gave us so much, and we are the poorer for his passing, but I am so much richer for his living, his ministry and his writing.

May he rest in eternal joy and peace with our loving Redeemer.

A few links:

TGC Announcement, “I met my hero” (Colin Hansen), “5 ways Tim Keller was the Anti-Celebrity” (Katelyn Beaty), NY Times obituary, The New Yorker. Two articles in the Atlantic (paywalled); also in the Atlantic, his reflections on facing death. An interview four months ago on prayer, cancer, and forgiveness. Russell Moore reflects and shares on his podcast. Colin Hansen remembers and reflects.