Doing life with Keller

TIM KELLER ON THE CHRISTIAN LIFE:
The Transforming Power of the Gospel
By Matt Smethurst
Crossway. 224 pages. £20.99
ISBN 978 1 433 598 193

Matt Smethurst is to be congratulated for trawling through almost half a century’s worth of Tim Keller’s sermons, speeches, interviews and books to produce this beautiful book.

The author begins with an introduction that sets the ministry of Tim Keller in context. It is helpful to be reminded that Keller’s varied ministry took place in very different places – from blue-collar Virginia to Westminster Seminary to downtown Philadelphia. This might not have appeared to be the ideal preparation for planting a church in New York City. Yet his blend of personality, intellect and practical experience meant that he had come to know God, himself, Scripture and other people well.

Smethurst helpfully highlights Keller’s ability to synthesise complex ideas from many sources so that they were understandable to the hearer. Keller, explains Smethurst, aimed not for sophistication but for simplicity. Keller was never simplistic, but he did communicate in a simple way. His sermons are clear and easy to follow; he had the ability to use verbal images and stories to drive home his message.

Smethurst says that “my aim in this book is to synthesize the master synthesizer.”

In eight relatively brief chapters, the author manages to do this by drawing together the essence of Keller’s thoughts on eight subjects that embrace the key motifs of Keller’s thinking, ranging from “Our Hero: Jesus Christ in all Scripture” to “The Painful Gift: how suffering drives us into God’s heart”.

I have said that the chapters in this book are relatively brief, each can be read quickly, which means that the reader does not get bogged down. Smethurst has indeed done a good job of synthesising Keller’s thought. Yet for those who want to dig into the detail, the author has provided extensive endnotes that point the reader to the original sources.

The author traces the evolution from seed thought to full bloom in Keller’s thinking, preaching and writing. For example, in the chapter “Three Ways to Live: Why religion needs grace”, the author traces how Keller came to see that responses to the gospel are more complicated than a binary choice of belief or unbelief. Keller began to introduce another way to avoid the gospel: religion. “Don’t just flee your bad works. Flee your ‘good’ works, too. Flee them both and collapse into the open arms of Jesus Christ.” For a couple of decades, I listened to Keller’s weekly sermons, first on CD and then online. They were part of my Monday refuelling. This book has reminded me of so many of those sermons, with their flashes of insight, compelling stories and penetrating applications to life.

This is brought out helpfully in two chapters – “When Faith goes to Work: Seeing God and others in your job do justice”, and “Love Mercy: Embodying the compassion of the King”. Getting the message right about how Christians view daily work and how we show Christ’s compassion in practical ways are vital themes for the church in the 21st century. We live at a time when the question is not “Is Christianity true?” but “Does it work?”

The author humbly concludes: “Of course, much more can be written about Keller’s life, ministry and legacy. I simply hope this book provides a helpful on-ramp to his voluminous body of teaching on the Christian life.”

I certainly hope that this book gains a wide readership, especially among church leaders and preachers. Keller has so much still to teach us about how to communicate the gospel in a way that transforms people by leading them to see their need of Christ at the heart of their lives. An excellent diagnostic test for leaders and preachers would be to look at the nine themes of this book and ask how regularly we are highlighting all of them.

The most moving chapter is the last one: “The Painful Gift”. Smethurst shows how Keller’s thinking about suffering was shaped in the crucible of his own experience of suffering in his own bouts of illness and the experience of being a pastor in New York in the aftermath of 9/11. Those who attended Keller’s funeral or saw it online will know that what Keller had to say about suffering and death had an authentic ring, because he was authentic.