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The Reason for God

A review of The Reason for God by Tim Keller Have you ever heard statements like these?
  • “How could there be just one true faith? It’s arrogant to say your religion is superior. . . . Surely all religions are equally good and valid for . . . their particular followers.”
  • “I won’t believe in a God who allows suffering.”
  • “The Christians I know don’t seem to have the freedom to think for themselves. I believe each individual must determine truth for him- or herself.”
  • “There are so many people who are not religious at all who are more kind and even more moral than many of the Christians I know.”
  • “I have . . . a problem with the doctrine of hell. The only god that is believable to me is a God of love.”
  • “My scientific training makes it difficult if not impossible to accept the teachings of Christianity.”
  • “Much of the Bible’s teaching is historically inaccurate.” “My biggest problem with the Bible is that it is culturally obsolete. Much of the Bible’s teaching (for example, about women) is socially regressive.”
How do you respond? Are there good answers to such questions? And once you’ve tried to answer such questions, how do you move the conversation away from these peripheral issues and to the Gospel itself? Tim Keller has been a pastor in Manhattan for almost twenty years. As he reaches out to unbelievers and hosts Q and A periods after sermons, he hears such statements and questions again and again. In a new book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, Keller answers these questions, and then presents Christ as compellingly beautiful and the Gospel as rationally coherent.
March 7, 2008

Sovereignty and Responsbility

In last Sunday’s sermon text, Malachi 1:1-5, God proves His love for the returned Israelite exiles in a strange way. “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother? . . . Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated.” There was nothing to choose between Esau and Jacob. Both were horrible sons; both were disobedient to God; the descendants of both were stiff-necked and rebellious. Both deserve judgment. Both deserve condemnation. Both peoples deserve hell. But God chooses to destroy Esau’s descendants and to love Jacob/Israel and his descendants. This is His sovereign choice. Only because He loves them are they not cut off. We too need to see ourselves as deserving of hell, as undeserving of His mercy, and thus to bow before Him, asking for that mercy only on the basis of Jesus’ death on the cross. That is the clear message of the passage. But a question remains: How can God say He hates Esau when God is said to love the world (John 3:16)? Doesn’t God love everyone? Doesn’t God desire all to be saved?
February 28, 2008

What is Your Task?

What has God called you to do? What should be the aim of your life?
  • Not to have an easy life: As Jesus says, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it (Luke 9:23-24).
  • Not to amass earthly wealth: As Paul says, "Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction" (1 Tim 6:9).
Surely one aim of your life should be to become holy, to be sanctified, to become like Christ: "This is the will of God, your sanctification" (1 Thessalonians 4:3). But while our sanctification, our becoming like Christ, begins with change inside us by the power of the Spirit, it does not end there. For as Paul says, "We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10). What are these good works?
February 22, 2008

Where is Your God?

Who is in control? Last week, we saw a tornado rip through Tennessee, killing dozens and causing dormitories to collapse on students at Union University; then yesterday, a former student walked into a classroom at Northern Illinois University and opened fire with a shotgun. At least six are dead. We know there are daily tragedies in the world. We know of ethnic violence in Kenya, of refugees in Darfur, of AIDS orphans and malaria deaths. Yes, yes, these are horrible; we don’t expect such problems to end – for those who live far away from us. But when young students face death at seemingly safe universities within the US, we ask, “What is going on? Who is in control?” And the skeptics around us – including, at times, our own doubting hearts – ask, “Where is your supposedly all-powerful God?” “The nations” ask a similar question in Psalm 115:2: “Where is your God?” Verse 3 answers the question: “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” Note four ways that this verse refutes the skeptic:
February 15, 2008

Fighting the Temptation to Grow Weary in Well-Doing

Galatians 6:9-10 9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. In last Sunday’s sermon, I asked: How do you fight temptation to grow weary of doing good? For we all face that temptation. Every one of us at times feels like giving up, like stepping back from whatever ministry we do. But as we saw, Paul says it is absolutely vital for us not to grow weary. Indeed, he makes not growing weary in well-doing a key part of the test to see whether or not we are saved. So how can we fight against this common, serious temptation?
January 17, 2008