Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Tim Keller

Why People Hate the Sermon on the Mount

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After I heard Tim Keller’s two-minute illustration (38:45–40:45) on the Sermon on the Mount, I tracked down the article he references.

Here it is (published 25 years ago):

Virginia Stem Owens. “God and Man at Texas A&M.” Reformed Journal 37, no. 11 (1987): 3–4.

Most of the students at my university come from middle-class, conservative, Republican families. The vices here, like the values, are traditional—weekend drunkenness and sexual promiscuity. Things a parent can understand.

Therefore, when I assigned my freshman English class “The Sermon on the Mount,” a selection in their rhetoric textbook taken from the King James Version, I had expected them to have at least a nodding acquaintance with the reading and to express a modicum of piety in their written responses. After all, Texas has always been considered at least marginally part of the Bible Belt. [Read more…] about Why People Hate the Sermon on the Mount

The New City Catechism and 5 Related Resources

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New-City-CatechismLast week Tim Keller asked “Why Catechesis Now?”

This morning TGC introduced the New City Catechism, adapted by Tim Keller and Sam Shammas from Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York.

TGC explains that catechisms have at least three purposes:

  1. Comprehensively explain the gospel, including the building blocks on which the gospel is based.
  2. Address and counteract the heresies, errors, and false beliefs of our time and culture.
  3. Form a distinct people, a counter-culture that reflects the likeness of Christ individually and communally.

The New City Catechism adapts three other catechisms:

  1. Calvin’s Geneva Catechism
  2. the Westminster Shorter and Larger Catechisms
  3. the Heidelberg Catechism

More:

  • It has 52 Q&As, one for each week of the year.
  • The answers have two levels: a simpler version and a more complex one (e.g., for children and adults).
  • Each Q&A includes commentary from a historical preacher and a short video from a TGC council member or pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.
  • The catechism is available online.
  • The Q&As are available in a 7-page PDF.
  • The interactive iPad app is free.
  • You can change the settings online and in the iPad app:

settings

5 Related Resources

Four recent books:

  1. DeYoung, Kevin. The Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16th Century Catechism. Chicago: Moody, 2010. (Cf. the first ever rap song about the Heidelberg Catechism.)
  2. Johnston, Mark G. Our Creed: For Every Culture and for Every Generation. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2012.
  3. Piper, John, ed. A Baptist Catechism. Minneapolis: Desiring God, 2012. (Free 40-page PDF)
  4. Trueman, Carl R. The Creedal Imperative. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

Questions with Answers by Dana Dirksen

(From #3 in “Bible Memory for Young Children“)

A mother and her children sing Bible verses and Q&A taken from a digest of the Westminster Shorter Catechism (Stephen Hildebrandt’s The Catechism for Young People). Some are more catchy than others (e.g., “How can you glorify God,” sample 3 here).

Keller on the Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness

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This booklet is (apparently) a sermon on 1 Cor 3:21–4:7:

Timothy Keller. The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness: The Path to True Christian Joy.  Chorley, England: 10 Publishing, 2012. 46 pp.

(The 24-page sample PDF includes half the booklet.)

Why do people do the bad things they do?

  1. The traditional answer is that people do bad things because they have too high a view of themselves. That is, they are proud and need a lower view of themselves.
  2. The contemporary answer is that people do bad things because they have too low a view of themselves. That is, they lack self-esteem and need a higher view of themselves.

Keller argues that Paul’s “approach to self-regard” utterly differs from both the traditional and contemporary answers (p. 12). [Read more…] about Keller on the Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness

Tim Keller’s “Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City”

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centerThis book comes out early next month:

Timothy Keller. Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City.  Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012.

It’s large (9.4 x 7.5 x 1.2 inches) and long (400 pp.).

The book is a strategic manual for developing a church’s theological vision. I read the introduction carefully and read the rest more quickly. It’s obvious that Keller has thought deeply about theological vision for a long time.

This graphic shows how important theological vision is (p. 19):

vision

(Tim Keller drafted TGC’s theological vision for ministry.) [Read more…] about Tim Keller’s “Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City”

Motive

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Then the word of the LORD Almighty came to me: “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves?’” (Zech 7:4–6)

John Calvin, Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets (translated by John Owen), 5:172–73 (formatting added):

God reproved the Jews, who had returned to their own country, for ingratitude, as they had already begun to pollute themselves.

He therefore brings this charge against them, [Read more…] about Motive

Tim Keller Started Redeemer Church Because of Watergate

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Sort of.

  1. Tim Keller planted Redeemer Church because he entered a Presbyterian denomination that encouraged church planting.
  2. Keller entered that denomination because in his last semester at seminary he took two courses with a professor who convinced him to adopt Presbyterian theology.
  3. Keller sat under that professor because at the very last minute the professor arrived at the seminary after having bureaucratic visa problems. (The professor was British.)
  4. While that professor was having visa problems, the seminary dean prayed one day about how he didn’t know how they were going to get the professor to arrive, and his prayer partner happened to be a seminary student named Mike Ford.
  5. Mike Ford happened to have some clout to get them through the bureaucratic snag because he was the son of Gerald Ford, the sitting President of the United States. [Read more…] about Tim Keller Started Redeemer Church Because of Watergate

An Edifying Vision of Marriage

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In October 2011 I reviewed this book for the forthcoming edition of JBMW, and the CBMW Blog has posted the review. [Update on 12/4/2012: The review is now available as a PDF.]

Timothy Keller, with Kathy Keller. The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God. New York: Dutton, 2011.

Conclusion:

I could apply many adjectives to the book:

  1. insightful,
  2. shrewd,
  3. disarming,
  4. realistic,
  5. convicting,
  6. pastoral,
  7. warm,
  8. gracious,
  9. penetrating,
  10. theological,
  11. relevant,
  12. faithful,
  13. incisive,
  14. accessible,
  15. clear,
  16. compelling.

But perhaps best of all (because of those traits), it’s edifying.

It has inspired me to glorify God by loving and leading my wife like Ephesians 5:21-33 commands.

Related: I blogged on this book three times in October:

  1. You Take Me the Way I Am
  2. Some Practical Counsel for Marriage Seekers
  3. “My wife has lived with at least five different men since we were wed—and each of the five has been me.”

Money quote from Keller in an interview:

In the long run, the more superficial things that made a person sexually attractive will move to the background, and matters of character, humility, grace, courage, faithfulness, and love will come to the foreground. So companionship, duty, and mutual sacrifice are, in the end, the sexiest things of all.

And here are three videos:

1. An interview with Tim and Kathy Keller:

2. Tim Keller presents the book to Google employees:

3. Tim and Kathy Keller present the book at The Gospel Coalition’s 2012 National Women’s Conference:

“My wife has lived with at least five different men since we were wed—and each of the five has been me.”

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Tim Keller writes in The Meaning of Marriage  ,

Christian ethicist Lewis Smedes wrote an article that I read as a young pastor and a still new husband. It helped me enormously as both a counselor and spouse. It is called “Controlling the Unpredictable—The Power of Promising” [Christianity Today 27:2 (January 21, 1983): 16–19]. (p. 90)

Keller then interacts with the article to underscore his point that “marriage is essentially a covenant” (p. 90). Here are some excerpts from Smedes’s article:

Some people ask who they are and expect their feelings to tell them. But feelings are flickering flames that fade after every fitful stimulus. Some people ask who they are and expect their achievements to tell them. But the things we accomplish always leave a core of character unrevealed. Some people ask who they are and expect visions of their ideal self to tell them. But our visions can only tell us what we want to be, not what we are.

Maybe we can best find out who and what we are by asking about the promises we have made to other people and the promises we are trying to keep for their sakes.

__________

When I married my wife, I had hardly a smidgen of sense for what I was getting into with her. [Read more…] about “My wife has lived with at least five different men since we were wed—and each of the five has been me.”