Review: God’s Wisdom for Navigating Life

Timothy Keller.  God’s Wisdom for Navigating Life. New York, NY: Viking, November 7th 2017. 400 pp.

3 out of 5

Purchase: Westminster | Amazon

Want to find a year-long devotional on the book of Proverbs?  Preacher and author Timothy Keller has written this 365 days devotionals on the book of Proverbs.  This review is my overall thoughts on this devotional.

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Review: Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical

Timothy Keller.  Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical. New York, NY: Viking, September 20^th, 2016. 320 pp.

4 out of 5

Purchase: Westminster | Amazon

Over the years I have appreciated the writing of Timothy Keller.  Keller has written this title not just only as Christian apologetics but he makes a direct appeal to those who are non-Christians to consider Christianity.  I thought it was a great angle that Keller was trying to write this book to “talk” to those who aren’t Christians rather than this being another book on Christian apologetics written by a Christian for Christians.

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Third Week of April 2017 Presuppositional Apologetics’ Links

Here are links related to the subject of Presuppositional apologetics gathered online between April 15th-21st, 2017.

1.) The Trinity is the Foundation for Math, Unity, and Truth

2.) Creation, the Resurrection, and Evidence

3.) The Trinity: The Potent Truth Many Ignore

4.) Calvinist Cartoon: Conflict and Resolution

5.) What’s presuppositionalism?

6.) Reconnect Podcast Show: Presuppositions and Evidence in Christian Apologetics

7.) CORNELIUS VAN TIL RUINED AMERICA? A RESPONSE TO MOLLY WORTHEN

8.) Book Review: Making Sense of God by Tim Keller 

9.) Divine hiddenness and evil

10.) Confronting The Myth Of Neutrality

11.) Calvinist Cartoon: Wasting Time

 

Missed the last round up?  Check out the re-blogged post from a friend OR that of Another REBLOG HERE

 

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Dissertation on PDF: Preaching to Provoke a Worldview Change: Tim Keller’s Use of Presuppositional Apologetics in Preaching

Here’s a doctoral dissertation that Southern Seminary has made available titled “Preaching to Provoke a Worldview Change: Tim Keller’s Use of Presuppositional Apologetics in Preaching.”  It was written by Travis Allen Freeman in 2011.

Here’s an abstract:

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Presuppositional apologetics links: Third week of November 2013

These are links from November 16th-21st 2013 on Presuppositional apologetics.

What other links should we have included here?

1.) Numbers Need Worldviews

2.) Thoughts on Systematic Theology by John Frame

3.) Critical Evaluation of Tim Keller’s apologetical method By Wes Bredenhof

4.) Extracting Nectar From a Painted Rose

5.) On Sale for $0.99 – Pick up “Lying: The Case Against Deception” HERE

6.) Apologetic Evangelism 101: Evangelism’s Woes  JUST ADDED!

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Review: Every Good Endeavor by Timothy Keller

Purchase: Westminster | Amazon

This works explore the Gospel implication towards the area of work and career. I wish there were more books on work from a Christian perspective that’s Gospel driven. While Tim Keller doesn’t answer everything concerning a Christian view of work, the book does manage to do a good job of laying down the foundation of a Christian view of work—and as a result this book was better than I originally expected. I appreciated Keller’s consciousness of worldviews—and worldviews as meta-narratives. If one’s foundational presuppositions (what Keller calls “first order beliefs”) is off, then it would definitely lead to practical problems concerning work and employment. The book is divided into three section—God’s plan for work, our problem with work and the Gospel and Work. The conscious reader will noticed this three fold division of the book reflects the Christian Creation, Fall Redemption motif. This is definitely a reflection of Keller’s attempt to address the issue of work from the Gospel. I thought the book was nuance enough to deal with some of the complexity of work in today’s sin-saturated world: Keller is careful enough in his work to make sure a Christian view of work doesn’t make one self-righteous, thinking they are necessarily better than non-believers at work. Bringing the Reformed doctrine of Common Grace, he accounts for why non-Christians can sometimes even do their work better than Christians! And this is true in spite of the destructive world views some people hold to. In addition, Keller pointed out that for the Christian we don’t work to be accepted but the Gospel declares we already accepted by God because our sins are atoned for by Jesus. Therefore, we are free from the shackles of self when we work because we now live to please God—there is no need to seek work and accomplishments at work as a form of salvation. Keller also noted how the reality of sin means our work will be frustrated in this side of eternity and that we should expect it—yet our eternity in heaven means we might finish some of our task that’s our deepest longing then. If one follows Keller’s footnotes you will definitely tell that he’s a man who reads much and quite diversely. I only have two criticisms of the book: The first being in chapter six his approach to the book of Ecclesiastes adopt the outlook and conclusion of theological liberals such as his belief that the book had two narrators, the book was not authored by Solomon and thereby the genre was a “fictional biography,” etc. I was surprised at his omission of any conservative arguments to the contrary. Secondly, in a section of chapter eight in which Keller was talking about the idols of Postmodern cultures, he writes that “ultimately postmodern thought makes an idol out of reality as it is” (145). I would disagree: I think postmodernity’s idol is not reality per se, but “perspectives” and “perceptions” of that reality, in which one can only get a “slice” of what is real, provided if we can know it depending on the particular Postmodernist. Postmodern’s theme that there is no objective knowledge given our participation in the process of knowing things slant it to idolize fragmenting knowledge into tribes such as Asian American, post-colonial, post-Christian, feminists perspective, etc.

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Review: The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller

Purchase: Westminster | Amazon

A book on Luke 15, the parable of the two sons (commonly called the parable of the Prodigal sons). Those who have not read or heard of a good exposition on this passage would be in for a treat with Keller’s book. As I was reading this book I can’t help it but to compare it to John MacArthur’s “Tale of Two Sons.” Personally I enjoyed MacArthur’s work better since it went over more exegetical materials and insights into the passage. Keller’s work spent more time on the Older Brother than MacArthur’s. I appreciate Keller’s attention to the search for one’s motive in doing things, that is we are doing things to earn merit to control God, then we are like the older brother in the parable…and we are doing it wrong. I disagree with Keller that the Father represents God, since I see the referent to be Jesus to be consistent with the reason why Jesus told this parable was due to the Pharisees seeing Jesus reaching out to “sinners.” One good exegetical insight Keller brought out from the parable of the two sons that I never noticed before is the fact in the previous parables of the lost coin and the lost sheep, there was a “search and rescue” being done but this story lacks that and he brings out that it should have been the responsibility of the older brother to find the younger son which he failed to do. Self-righteous religious people don’t search out for the lost to see them back to the father–ouch, for those who don’t have a heart for the lost. Over all good book.

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