My Tribute to Tim Keller
Jonathan Kerhoulas | May 23, 2023
Tim Keller was the publicly prominent voice for Christ in my generation who I trusted the most. When he spoke or wrote, I never had to brace myself for embarrassment. He rang true again and again, because he was true—true to Christ.
–Ray Ortlund
When someone has shaped such a large part of your life’s vision and philosophy of ministry, it’s an impossible task to capture your appreciation in a few paragraphs. Aside from my parents, no one has had a deeper impact on my understanding of life, modern culture, and the beauty of Jesus Christ than Timothy Keller.
Ministering in New York City since the late 1980’s, Tim served as a prophetic and clarion voice for the beautiful logic of the gospel within Western secular societies and beyond. It was Tim’s preaching that first captured my imagination. Then it was his books. Then it was his consistency, his well-reasoned and articulate missionary conviction that Jesus Christ and his gospel were exactly what the modern heart needed to believe, that captured my attention. But over time, and through the years, as Tim’s influence grew (along with his critics), it was his cruciform character and genuine humility that landed him as arguably the most influential Christian apologist, preacher, and minister of our generation. The man who never wanted to be famous, who didn’t need a platform, the man who pointed us time and time again to the centerpiece of world history, Jesus Christ, lived and led in a way that brought honor to Christ. Tim was not perfect, not at all. But his character exceeded the immensity of his giftedness which allowed his ministry, and more importantly his family, to remain untouched by the scandals that mark far too many prominent pulpits and churches. For that I am so grateful.
Tim Keller’s gift was synthesis. He engaged with authors and books that mere mortals could only pretend to digest. His own books are the most well-worn on my shelves as they’ve allowed me to climb his shoulders for a better view. But Tim’s exceptional intellect was outmatched only by his desire for renewed lives, hearts, and cities. If you’ve heard a Tim Keller sermon, you would agree that each sermon captivated our minds, grounded our convictions, and somehow, time after time, hit us straight in the heart with a “Jesus bomb,” in fresh, attractive, and well-reasoned ways. My love for Christ, my understanding of sin and idolatry, my conceptions of the human heart and what is actually required to transform it, have all been indelibly marked by Tim’s influence and life. Like Sally-Lloyd Jones has written in the preface to The Jesus Storybook Bible – “You’ve given me a vocabulary of faith and opened my eyes to the wonder of grace.”
It has been one of the great honors of my life to be personally connected to the Keller family. Michael Keller, Tim’s middle son, became one of my dear friends in seminary as we served together at a church in downtown Boston. This gave our family the opportunity to stay with Tim and Kathy in NYC, enjoying their hospitality, on more than one occasion. Tim was the same man at home as he was in the public square – and it was those very rare, small moments of personal interaction, that genuine “Thank you, Jonathan” he offered as I hailed him a cab and sent him off to the airport after a conference, Tim’s willingness to help me find an obscure passage in Romans for a paper I was completing, that “Why are you staying at a hotel, you could have stayed with me and Kathy” – he offered when we came to NY to hear him speak, that have grounded my conviction that Tim wasn’t just someone who could preach Jesus. He’s someone who lived with Jesus moment by moment.
Even with his cancer diagnosis these last three years, Tim remained a leader to leaders. Pastors need pastors too – and Tim was that for me and countless others. We have lost a dear friend, a trusted guide, a prophetic voice, a man whom God raised up for a time such as this and a generation such as ours. Even in his dying he couldn’t help but lead us to Jesus. As was shared on social media on Friday by the Keller family, some of Tim’s last words were, “There is no downside for me leaving, not in the slightest.” Thank you, Tim, for making our Savior loom large in our hearts. As you stand in His presence right now, I know you’d tell us that everything you ever told us about Jesus is so much better than you ever said it – and you said it better than most. Until we adore Him together, I say thank you dear friend.
