Tim Keller (pastor) Quotes

177 Sourced Quotes

By praying with friends, you will be able to hear and see facets of Jesus that you have not yet perceived.

Tim Keller
Marriage does not so much bring you into confrontation with your spouse as confront you with yourself.

Tim Keller
If this world was made by a triune God, relationships of love are what life is really all about.

Tim Keller
When Jesus looked down from the cross, he didn't think I am giving myself to you because you are so attractive to me. No, he was in agony, and he looked down at us - denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him - and in the greatest act of love in history, he STAYED. He said, Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing. He loved us, not because we were lovely to him, but to make us lovely.

Tim Keller
Sin is the despairing refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God.

Tim Keller
In short, the enlightenment privatized marriage, taking it out of the public sphere, and redefined its purpose as individual gratification, not any 'broader good' such as reflecting God's nature, producing character, or raising children. Slowly but surely, this newer understanding of the meaning of marriage has displaced the older ones in Western culture.

Tim Keller
There are many ways to cover up our sin. We may justify or minimize it by blaming circumstances and others people. However, real repentance first admits sin as sin and takes full responsibility. True confession and repentance begins when blame shifting ends...Just as real repentance begins only where blame shifting ends, so it also begins where self-pity ends, and we start to turn from our sin out of love for God rather than mere self-interest.

Tim Keller
The basic purpose of prayer is not to bend God's will to mine, but to mold my will into His.

Tim Keller
We modern people think of miracles as the suspension of the natural order, but Jesus meant them to be the restoration of the natural order.

Tim Keller
It is one thing to say that science is only equipped to test for natural causes and cannot speak to any others. It is quite another to insist that science proves that no other causes could possibly exist.... There would be no experimental model for testing the statement: 'No supernatural cause for any natural phenomenon is possible.' It is therefore a philosophical presupposition and not a scientific finding.

Tim Keller
The Gospel is the deepest consolation you can offer to the human heart.

Tim Keller
Repentance is like antiseptic. You pour antiseptic onto a wound and, at first, it stings. Then it heals.

Tim Keller
Prayer is continuing a conversation that God has started through his Word and his grace, which eventually becomes a full encounter with him.

Tim Keller
To stay away from Christianity because part of the Bible's teaching is offensive to you assumes that if there is a God he wouldn't have any views that upset you. Does that belief make sense? If you don't trust the Bible enough to let it challenge and correct your thinking, how could you ever have a personal relationship with God? In any truly personal relationship, the other person has to be able to contradict you.

Tim Keller
We must not settle for an informed mind without an engaged heart.

Tim Keller
Jesus says, "I want you to follow me so fully, so intensely, so enduringly that all other attachments in your life look weak by comparison"

Tim Keller
The church does not simply have a missions department; it should wholly exist to be a mission.

Tim Keller
Preaching is compelling to young secular adults...
- not if preachers use video clips from their favorite movies and dress informally and sound sophisticated,
- but if the preachers understand their hearts and culture so well that listeners feel the force of the sermon's reasoning, even if in the end they don't agree with it.

Tim Keller
God loves and defends those with the least economic and social power, and so should we.

Tim Keller
While the difference between a bad sermon and a good sermon is mainly the responsibility of the preacher, the difference between good preaching and great preaching lies mainly in the work of the Holy Spirit.... We should do the work it takes to make our communication good and leave it up to God how and how often he makes it great for the listener.

Tim Keller
Putting our faith in Christ is not about trying harder; it means transferring our trust away from ourselves and resting in him.

Tim Keller
It is no more narrow to claim that one religion is right than to claim that one way to think about all religions is right.

Tim Keller
When I forget the gospel I become dependent on the smiles and evaluation of others.

Tim Keller
Most people in the world believe that if there is a God, you relate to God by being good. Most religions are based on that principle, though there are a million different variations on it...But they all have the same logic: If I perform, if I obey, I'm accepted. The gospel of Jesus is not only different from that but diametrically opposed to it: I'm fully accepted in Jesus Christ, and therefore I obey.

Tim Keller
Doing justice includes not only the righting of wrongs but generosity and social concern, especially toward the poor and vulnerable.

Tim Keller
If you come to recognize the beliefs on which your doubts about Christianity are based, and if you seek as much proof for those beliefs as you seek from Christians for theirs - you will discover that your doubts are not as solid as they first appeared.

Tim Keller
If we have not seen our sin and sought radical forgiveness from God, we will be unable to forgive and to seek the good of those who have wronged us.

Tim Keller