Timothy Keller (1950-2023)

Hello everyone, Michael Keller here (the son that's helped run Dad's social media since we started in 2013). Thank you so much for all the beautiful memories, stories, and tributes written over the past two weeks about Dad. The original vision for creating these social media 1/3

In Nineveh Jonah preached repentance and God's wrath. He also demanded a more just society--the end of violence toward the poor and oppressed. Most people do one or the other. This text encourages us to do both. buff.ly/hnf1YSp

Adoption is not something that happens naturally. Adoption takes a choice. Adoption takes a legal activity, and that is the marvelous claim of Christianity. Through Christ, at Christ’s expense through the redemption of his blood, you can be adopted. – @timkellernyc Sermon, Adoption (Part 1) gospelinlife.com/podcast

Christians are more flawed than they think they are, but also far more loved than they feel they are. pic: @x_marks_heart

Our pleasure and our duty Though opposite before Since we have seen His beauty Are joined to part no more. -- Olney Hymns

The tragedy of humanity is that we strive for and fail to find what we could simply receive and enjoy.

The story of Christ is 'is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men—and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused’ (Tolkien, ‘On Fairy-stories’, 63). See the discussion in Hidden Christmas. buff.ly/AnhtoL5

Something radical has to happen in order to enable you to be before God in love. That radical thing happens when you humble yourself and repent of your sins and see that Jesus Christ has satisfied all the requirements. – @timkellernyc Sermon, Before Him gospelinlife.com/podcast

"My thesis [is] that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance." M.Volf If we believe in a God who will judge all on Judgment day, we have a powerful motive for non-retaliation. The point: You have to have had a comfortable life to not want a God who judges and punishes evil and injustice. Romans 12:19-21

"It takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God's refusal to judge. In a land...soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die...[with] many other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind." M.Volf

On the experience of God--C.Taylor speaks of "fullness"--an experience many skeptics have had of the transcendent. Taylor gives examples. Some move toward faith in God, but many just acknowledge that they now know there's a supernatural and leave it at that. Worth exploring!

We may know how or why God has redeemed us through the holiness of Jesus Christ. But the important next step for any Christian is to consider, “For what have we been redeemed?” Ephesians tells us that God chose us to be holy and blameless in his sight. However, we may find ourselves struggling to actually change ourselves for the better even after we say we’re saved by Jesus. How exactly does the grace of God lead to character change and holiness? Let’s examine how 1) we are holy because God chose us, not the other way around; 2) the connection between faith and growth; and 3) how we may come to truly stand before God as holy and blameless. Listen to @timkellernyc's "Before Him" on gospelinlife.com/podcast.

@nickhenninghill Apologies: amzn.to/4vkki92 -mk

@timkellernyc What book is this? Link is broken.

We may believe in the existence of God with our minds, but it is a powerful sense of his sweetness and beauty on our hearts that changes our character. This book on that "faith-sight" experience is unique and invaluable. buff.ly/DtXbmLo

amzn.to/4vkki92 corrected link. -mk

If you met a truly humble person, you wouldn't think him/her humble, but only that they were happy and incredibly interested in you.

"I live to show his power who once did bring [first] my joys to weep and now my griefs to sing." G.Herbert. By showing us--usually thro trouble--our need for him, we now find that even suffering only drives us like a nail more into his love and joy.

Moralistic behavior change is done for one's self, not for God's sake. It manipulates and leverages sinful selfishness without challenging it. See Edwards' "The Nature of True Virtue."

Many who cite verses from the Pentateuch to discredit the Bible either have not read scholars such as Christopher Wright and Tremper Longman or else they have and have refuted their arguments. My guess is they haven’t read them—but I urge them to if that’s the case.

Forgiveness isn’t something that can just be given for free; it always has a cost. When we commit an offense against someone and they forgive us, they pay the price of the time, money, or reputation we took from them. Ephesians tells us our sins against God, too, come with a real cost that only Jesus could pay—and that understanding this can truly transform our lives. Let’s look at how 1) no sin can be forgiven without someone absorbing the cost, 2) why Jesus’s crucifixion was the necessary answer for us breaking God’s Law, and 3) how our lives can be radically changed by this grace. Listen to @timkellernyc's "Our Ransom, Redeemed By Blood (Part 3)" on gospelinlife.com/podcast.

After my father's death, I realized the prayers and creeds we recited together on his final night were more than comforting rituals. They were expressions of the story he had trusted his entire life. Every person lives from a story. What story is shaping yours? The Stories We Live By is available for preorder. buff.ly/xdcKwt7 -Michael Keller