Dark Brightness

Read the whole article and then buy all his books. Now. Throw some Tolkien in if you haven’t already read it…

Redeemer holds high moral standards, but Keller puts all 10 commandments under the first one—to have no other gods. Preaching about idolatry—the sin of putting something or someone else in the place of God—enables Keller to communicate with relativists, who would respond to Christian moral standards by saying, “That’s just your opinion.”

“When you say the ultimate sin is to put things in the place of God,” Keller says, “you take that argument away. You find that they say, ‘Hmm, I don’t know if there is a God.’ When I describe sin in such a way that people wish there were a God, I’m making progress.”

Redeemer doesn’t participate in culture wars. It aims to focus on Jesus, and on the incredible good news that God is not, in fact, the worst taskmaster in the world but the one who died for us.

via How Tim Keller Found Manhattan | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction.

Paul is commenting on the super spiritual preachers who claimed that they had it all together. He, however, said that he did NOT have it together.

Spiritual does not always look spiritual. I have no doubt Paul was unhappy when lashed, stoned, beaten and in shipwrecks. He describes being anxious. He was not happy, and he did not appear successful.

But he is the first Christian theologian, and the founder of the Gentile church.

But whatever anyone dares to boast of – I am speaking as a fool – I also dare to boast of that. 22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. 23 Are they ministers of Christ? I am talking like a madman – I am a better one: with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless floggings, and often near death. 24 Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. 28 And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I am not indignant?

30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.

via PCUSA – Devotions.