The Death of a Giant - A Personal Tribute to Timothy Keller

Remember the Day?

I remember the day The Beatles split up. A school teacher at Snail Lake Primary School in Minnesota broke the news to us. 

I remember the day Mrs Thatcher resigned - a fellow student chalked the words "The Iron Lady has gone" on the black board of a classroom I was in.

I remember the day when Lady Diana died, I woke early one Sunday morning to hear the news (and since it was the days before social media discovered that many folks at church had not yet heard). 

I remember too, the day the Twin Towers fell. Mesmerised by the terrifying spectacle I dropped everything to watch, hour after hour, after hour.

Last Friday, I heard that Timothy Keller had gone to his eternal home. I was surprised because just the day before I heard that he had moved from his home to a hospice. Passing away the very next day after hospice admission, is, in my limited experience, unusual.

I felt an unusual pang of sorrow, quite unlike I've ever felt before over the passing of an evangelical leader, and it's taken me a while to figure out why I had grown so fond of a brother in Christ I never knew personally.

Food for the Soul

The first and foremost reason for my sorrow was Keller's preaching. I first came to hear Timothy Keller through American friends who suggested that our small church-planting team should listen to some sermons of his (on tapes, not even CDs, we're talking 1998ish). We were so blessed. 

And over the years I found the following aspects of his preaching deeply helpful and influential.

[As an example, try How To Deal with Hard Times.]

Timothy Keller spoke simply. Never out to impress the worldy-wise, his preaching was accessible to everyone. I cannot remember a single sermon - and I have listened to scores - which went beyond the ordinary person in the street. In this way he emulated his Master who spoke ordinary words for ordinary people. "Tell me the story simply as to a little child, for I am weak and weary and helpless and defiled." 

Timothy Keller, was first and foremost a preacher.

Timothy Keller wore his learning lightly. Why was Keller so simple? Because he left learning in the study when he entered the pulpit. He wasn't out to impress fellow pastors how much he knew, what high-faluten books he had read, what dazzling insights he had gleaned. All that "stuff" was unseen, and hence he was simple to understand.

Timothy Keller was clear. Clarity comes from logic and flow. His talks were structured, not rambling or random, it was obvious that he had worked hard on order and outline. 

Timothy Keller preached the Gospel. I can't think of a single "curve ball" doctrine Timothy Keller threw. Some preachers are known for some weird tertiary doctrine, but not Keller. He was a Gospel man, through and through. He probably got it wrong on evolutionary theory, but he didn't bang that drum. Keller preached the Gospel of Christ, first and foremost.

Timothy Keller suffered. I know that, not only through the reports of his three year long battle with pancreatic cancer, but from the voice of authority with which he spoke, an authority that bore the hallmarks of suffering of all kinds, including false accusations (just Google, "Is Timothy Keller a heretic?"). It's impossible to preach authentically like Keller from the respectable armchair of some intellectual academy. 

Timothy Keller stewarded the gifts God gave him. It is always offensive to the Gospel when a preacher or writer is introduced by his academic degrees because in heaven's final court - the only real court - such nonsense will be utterly unknown. And so we might wish that Kellers' book blurbs had been more in line with the New Testament, perhaps, "Converted sinner from Manhattan who preaches the Gospel." (But then the book publishers would have to sell them at a more realistic half of the price.) Reading between the lines, however, you soon realise that God gave Keller considerable gifts of mind, and these he stewarded well. Our gifts may be different, that's the way God has designed things. The Lord wants us to steward whatever gifts he has given us well.

Timothy Keller was genuine. Of course I do not know that first hand. But you sense it through his books and sermons. In an evangelical world full of fallen bigshots, my guess is that terrible revelations are not going to follow in the wake of his passing.

Timothy Keller spoke to his generation. If I were to hazard a guess, some, perhaps even many, of Keller's books will be unknown in 30 years' time - but for a good reason.  He wanted to address the people who lived in his present world and share the Gospel with them in a winsome way. His Gospel application was not theoretical or abstract but concretely located in our present world. He was "Anchored to the rock, but geared to the times."

So I shall miss this one-off unique godly-saint at a distance, who is reported to have said close to death, "I can't wait to see Jesus." 

Waiting for Heaven's Judgement

Of course you and I have no idea what the final Judgement will say about Keller, ourselves or anyone else. It is very likely that many of evangelical's great and famous will be unknown in that world to come, and conversely those unknown in this world will receive the loudest Well Dones. 

That's why Paul insists "Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time.." What I have written above, it must be said, may prove to be a wrong assessment. 

All I can say for sure is that the Lord used a humble American by the name of Tim to bless my soul.