redeemer city to city

Challies Reviews Keller's The Meaning of Marriage

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Meaning of Marriage

Tim Challies provides an excellent review of Tim Keller's newest book, The Meaning of Marriage. Below is his strong conclusion, but go and read the whole review and buy the book.

This is a powerful book; it is my new favorite book on marriage and the best of all the books I read in 2011. The Meaning of Marriage elevates marriage, making it something beautiful and holy and lovely. And with it comes friendship and companionship and sex and everything else God has packaged into the marriage relationship. This book celebrates it all and it does it within the greatest context of all—the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Having read the book through two times, I’ve found myself wondering how to best measure or evaluate it, but perhaps these criteria are useful: Would I want to read it with my wife or would I encourage her to read it on her own? Would I recommend it to the people in my church? In both cases the answer is an unreserved yes. In fact, I bought the audio book and listened to it with my wife and her assessment is the same as mine: Though there are many great books on marriage, this is the one we will recommend first.

Keller | Preaching in a Secular Culture

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Keller preachingFrom Tim Keller's new article, "Preaching in a Secular Culture," on some practices for preaching to secular people...

  • Solve all problems with the gospel
  • Beware of assumptions
  • Engage in apologetics
  • Provide applications for both parties
  • Be authentic
  • Be conscious of alienating language
  • Expect, and respect, doubt
  • Address the wider community
  • Draw on cultural references
  • Read across the spectrum

For more on these 10 practices and a lot more on preaching in a secular culture, go read the whole article.

Tim Keller | "Gospel Polemics, Part 3"

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Tim Keller has been writing about Gospel polemics. His first post he gave some introductory thoughts. Last post Dr. Keller listed 3 rules for Gospel polemics. This post he gives three more. Here are all six...

  1. Carson’s Rule—You don’t have to follow Matthew 18 before publishing polemics.
  2. Murray’s Rule—You must take full responsibility for even unwitting misrepresentation of someone’s views.
  3. Alexander’s Rule—Never attribute an opinion to your opponent that he himself does not own.
  4. Gillespie’s Rule A – Take your opponents’ views in total, not selectively. 
  5. Gillespie’s Rule B – Represent and engage your opponents’ position in its very strongest form, not in a weak ‘straw man’ form.
  6. Calvin’s Rule – Seek to persuade, not antagonize, but watch your motives! 

Go read all three posts: Post 1 | Post 2 | Post 3

Tim Keller | "Gospel Polemics, Part 2"

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Tim Keller discusses 3 rules for Gospel Polemics in his new post that "will help us neither avoid polemics nor engage in them in a spiritually destructive way." Here are the rules, but go read his explanations.

1. Carson’s Rule – You don’t have to follow Matthew 18 before publishing polemics
2. Murray’s Rule – You must take full responsibility for even unwitting misrepresentation of someone’s views
3. Alexander’s Rule – Never attribute an opinion to your opponent that he himself does not own

Read "Gospel Polemics, Part 2," or start with "Gospel Polemics, Part 1."