Keller Geeking Me Out on the Point of History

Given the fact that I'm a big nerd, summer time is when I kick my brain into high-gear. I read more books and listen to more podcasts over the summer because the demands on my time aren't quite so great.

This summer, I'm recreationally listening to a week-long intensive seminary course from Reformed Theological Seminary on Itunes U featuring Tim Keller and the late Ed Clowney. It must be at least ten years old--at one point Keller talks about the Lord of the Rings movies being in production.

But it's an excellent class on preaching and teaching with Christ as the center and goal of the sermon.

At one point Keller picks up on something extremely insightful that he had heard Clowney say years before that I'll try to summarize as best as I can.

When Adam and Eve sinned, God could have ended all of the creation experiment right there. Just wiped everyone out, hit the reset button and start over.

But he didn't. And the reason why he didn't was because of Jesus Christ. Jesus was going to come and redeem all the brokenness at one point in history and at a further point he would come and make it all new.

The point is this: Jesus Christ is the point of all of history.

Therefore, he's the point of all the Biblical texts, even and especially in the Old Testament. Jesus is the true David, the true Jonah, the true Abraham, the true Prophet who gathers up the lives of Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekial in his life.

Thus, he should be "the point" of all teaching and preaching. Otherwise we're just slipping into vague moralism (try-harder religion) rather than speaking the fullness of the gospel.

Jesus Christ has come not just so that we have more rules (or even, alas, a new "model") to follow but that we might have new hearts. Those new hearts are given to us and we are empowered towards new life as we see Jesus, understand his grace and love for us, embrace him as the source of our lives, and follow him with gladness--even when that costs us everything else that we have.

I'm still making my way through the 30-plus sessions of the class. But my inner-nerd is delighting in some pretty rich fare as I travel in the car these days and take in some excellent teaching.

If you're at all interested in joining me in my nerdiness but aren't sure how it all works, the Itunes player is free (click here) and Itunes U has all kinds of free classes--you can just search through the Itunes library for Tim Keller.