Fahnen Keller Quotes

We have talked about the manner and mode of preaching, but contextualization also has much to do with the content. A sermon could be unengaging to a person because, though expressing accurate biblical truth, it does not connect biblical teaching to the main objections and questions people in that culture have about faith. ~ Timothy Keller

God gives out good gifts of wisdom, talent, beauty, and skill 'graciously'
that is, in a completely unmerited way. He casts them across all humanity, regardless of religious conviction, race, gender, or any other attribute to enrich, brighten, and preserve the world. ~ Timothy Keller

The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all ... The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands - the ownership and control of their livelihoods - are set at naught, we can have neither men's rights nor women's rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease. ~ Helen Keller

We are saved by a man who died loving his enemies. ~ Timothy Keller

Reaching a city requires a willingness to work with other churches, even churches that hold to different beliefs and practices - a view sometimes called ~ Timothy Keller

You can lead a bureaucrat to water, but you can't make him think. ~ Ric Keller

It is at this very point that the Spirit of God helps us so much. In each text, Paul links a willing "servant heart" to the gospel itself. And what is that gospel? It is that you are so lost and flawed, so sinful, that Jesus had to die for you, but you are also so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for you. Now you are fully accepted and delighted in by the Father, not because you deserve it but only by free grace. My reluctance to let Kathy serve me was, in the end, a refusal to live my life on the basis of grace. I wanted to earn everything. I wanted no one to give me any favors. ~ Timothy Keller

Even if our own troubles are great, we should still serve. Jesus washed His disciples feet on the way to the cross. ~ Timothy Keller

But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. ~ Timothy Keller

I seemed to see two camps before me, and there was something radically wrong with both of them. The people most passionate about social justice were moral relativists, while the morally upright didn't seem to care about the oppression going on all over the world. I was emotionally drawn to the former path - what young person wouldn't be? Liberate the oppressed and sleep with who you wanted! But I kept asking the question, If morality is relative, why isn't social justice as well? ~ Timothy Keller

My life has been happy because I have had wonderful friends and plenty of interesting work to do, ~ Helen Keller

We are never as thankful as we should be. When good things come to us, we do everything possible to tell ourselves we accomplished that or at least deserve it. We take the credit. And when our lives simply are going along pretty smoothly, without a lot of difficulties, we don't live in quiet, amazed, thankful consciousness of it. In the end, we not only rob God of the glory due him, but the assumption that we are keeping our lives going robs us of the joy and relief that constant gratitude to an all-powerful God brings. ~ Timothy Keller

History is a record of the incessant struggle of humanity against ignorance and oppression. ~ Helen Keller

Ah," the neighbor says. "I hear you are religious! Great! Religion is a good thing. Where is your temple or holy place?" "We don't have a temple," replies the Christian. "Jesus is our temple." "No temple? But where do your priests work and do their rituals?" "We don't have priests to mediate the presence of God," replies the Christian. "Jesus is our priest." "No priests? But where do you offer your sacrifices to acquire the favor of your God?" "We don't need a sacrifice," replies the Christian. "Jesus is our sacrifice." "What kind of religion is this?" sputters the pagan neighbor. And the answer is, it's no kind of religion at all. ~ Timothy J. Keller

God does not merely require our petitions but our selves, and no one who begins the hard, lifelong trek of prayer knows yet who they are. Nothing but prayer will ever reveal you to yourself, because only before God can you see and become your true self. To paraphrase something is to get the gist of it and make it accessible. Prayer is learning who you are before God and giving him your essence. Prayer means knowing yourself as well as God. ~ Timothy Keller

Happiness is like the mountain summit. It is sometimes hidden by clouds, but we know it is there. ~ Helen Keller

Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other. ~ Erma Bombeck

The sun and the air are God's free gifts to all, we say; but are they so? In yonder city's dingy alleys the sun shines not, and the air is foul. Oh, man, how dost thou forget and obstruct thy brother man, and say, "Give us this day our daily bread," when he has none! Oh, would that men would leave the city, its splendour and its tumult and its gold, and return to wood and field and simple, honest living! Then would their children grow stately as noble trees, and their thoughts sweet and pure as wayside flowers. ~ Helen Keller

When your heart speaks to you about what you need to do to sustain life on this planet, listen to it, make a difference, and be an inspiration for generations to come. Be inspired by people like Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Christopher Reeve, Albert Schweitzer, Helen Keller, and many others. ~ Bernie Siegel

Without the gospel, our self-image is based on living up to some standards - either our own or someone else's imposed on us. If we live up to those standards, we will be confident but not humble; if we don't live up to them, we will be humble but not confident. Only in the gospel can we be both enormously bold and utterly sensitive and humble, for we are simul justus et peccator, both perfect and sinner! ~ Timothy Keller

The gospel, if it is really believed, removes neediness - the need to be constantly respected, appreciated, and well regarded; the need to have everything in your life go well; the need to have power over others. All of these great, deep needs continue to control you only because the concept of the glorious God delighting in you with all His being is just that - a concept and nothing more. Our hearts don't believe it, so they operate in default mode. Paul is saying that if you want to really change, you must let the gospel teach you - that is to train, discipline, coach you - over a period of time. You must let the gospel argue with you. You must let the gospel sink down deeply into your heart, until it changes your motivation and views and attitudes. ~ Timothy Keller

Change happens not just by giving the mind new arguments but also by feeding the imagination new beauties ~ Timothy Keller

One of the most widely held beliefs in our culture today is that romantic love is all important in order to have a full life but that it almost never lasts. A second, related belief is that marriage should be based on romantic love. Taken together, these convictions lead to the conclusion that marriage and romance are essentially incompatible, that it is cruel to commit people to lifelong connection after the inevitable fading of romantic joy. The Biblical understanding of love does not preclude deep emotion. As we will see, a marriage devoid of passion and emotional desire for one another doesn't fulfill the Biblical vision. But neither does the Bible pit romantic love against the essence of love, which is sacrificial commitment to the good of the other. If we think of love primarily as emotional desire and not as active, committed service, we end up pitting duty and desire against each other in a way that is unrealistic and destructive. ~ Timothy Keller

Until they give me opportunity to write about matters that are not-me, the world must go on uninstructed and unreformed, and I can only do my best with the one small subject upon which I am allowed to discourse. ~ Helen Keller

Believe. No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted island, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit. ~ Helen Keller

All the seemingly loose threads and contradictory claims of the rest of the Bible come together in Jesus. ~ Timothy J. Keller

Jesus says, "I want you to follow me so fully, so intensely, so enduringly that all other attachments in your life look weak by comparison" ~ Timothy Keller

Prayer is both conversation and encounter with God. ~ Timothy Keller

No one church model or theological tradition - can reach an entire city. Reaching ~ Timothy Keller

I am here to give the American people some straight talk about higher education. Some have said we might have cut financial aid for college students. The truth is we have expanded access to college for our neediest students through the record growth of the Pell grant program. ~ Ric Keller

Prayer turns theology into experience. ~ Timothy J. Keller

Behold the glory of Jesus means that we begin to find Christ beautiful for who he is in himself. It means a kind of prayer in which we are not simply coming to him to get his forgiveness, his help for our needs, his favor and blessing. Rather, the consideration of his character, words, and work on our behalf becomes inherently satisfying, enjoyable, comforting, and strengthening.289 Owen insisted that it was crucial that Christians be enabled to do this. He reasoned that if the beauty and glory of Christ do not capture our imaginations, dominate our waking thought, and fill our hearts with longing and desire - then something else will. We will be "continually ruminating" on something or some things as our hope and joy. Whatever those things are, they will "frame our souls" and "transform us into their likeness." If we don't behold the glory of God in the face of Christ, then something else will rule our lives. We will be slaves. ~ Timothy Keller

If I am happy in spite of my deprivations, if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith, so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life. If, in short, I am an optimist, my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing. ~ Helen Keller

In Holman Hunt's painting, "The Light of the World, "Christ is shown in a garden at midnight, holding a lantern in His left hand. With His right hand He is knocking on a heavily paneled door. When the painting was unveiled, a critic remarked to the painter, "Mr. Hunt, the work is unfinished. There is no handle on the door." "That," Hunt answered, "is the door to the human heart. It can be opened only from the inside." ~ James Keller

The church should be a place where people can be free to say that they are sinners. ~ Timothy Keller

I waved to him, and he waved back. I tried not to think about how Chad couldn't see me doing that now. Helen Keller said that when you lose one sense, another one grows stronger. But by the time Chad learned how to hear me waving, it would be too late. ~ Jennifer Gooch Hummer

You must be single-minded. Drive for the one thing on which you have decided. - General George S. Patton ~ Gary Keller

Have you heard God's blessing in your inmost being? Are the words, "You are my beloved child, in whom I delight" an endless source of joy and strength? Have you sensed, through the Holy Spirit, God speaking to you? That blessing- the blessing through the Spirit that is ours through Christ- is what Jacob received, and it is the only remedy against idolatry. Only that blessing makes idols unnecessary. As with Jacob, we usually discover this only after a life of "looking for blessings in all the wrong places." It often takes an experience of crippling weakness for us to finally discover it. That is why so many of the most God-blessed people limp as they dance for joy. ~ Timothy Keller

If you can't show the difference between religion and the Gospel, people will confuse morality with a changed heart ~ Timothy Keller

Some time ago we heard a strange story. The pilot of a small plane said that he had been caught in a one hundred fifty mile gale, which held his plane perfectly still. The motor was roaring, he claimed, but the plane was not moving. "It was weird," he said , "to be going one hundred fifty miles an hour and yet not be going anywhere at all." ~ James Keller

Only in Jesus Christ do we see how the untamable, infinite God can become a baby and a loving Savior. On the cross we see how both the love and the holiness of God can be fulfilled at once. ~ Timothy Keller

All forms of love are necessary, and none are to be ignored, but all of us find some forms of love to be more emotionally valuable to us. They are a currency that we find particularly precious, a language that delivers the message of love to our hearts with the most power. Some types of love are more thrilling and fulfilling to us when we receive them.. ~ Timothy Keller

To do two things at once is to do neither." - Publilius Syrus ~ Gary Keller

to the world. God created both body and soul, and the resurrection of Jesus shows that he is going to redeem both body and soul. The work of the Spirit of God is not only to save souls but also to care and cultivate the face of the earth, the material world. It is hard to overemphasize the uniqueness of this vision. Outside of the Bible, no other major religious faith holds out any hope or even interest in the restoration of perfect shalom, justice, and wholeness in this material world. Vinoth Ramachandra, a Sri Lankan Christian writer, can see ~ Timothy J. Keller

You'd be hard pressed to find elite achievers who don't have coaches helping them in key areas of their life. ~ Gary W. Keller

To experience the joy and freedom of love, you must give up your personal autonomy ~ Timothy Keller

Freedom is not, then, simply the absence of restrictions, but rather consists of finding the right, liberating restrictions. Put another way, we must actively take tactical freedom losses in order to receive strategic freedom gains. ~ Timothy Keller