‘I’ll Miss Our Conversations’: Collin Hansen Remembers Tim Keller

The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Melissa Kruger
Welcome to this edition of gospel bound. My name is Melissa Kruger and I am here with the regular host, Colin Hanson. Today we are turning the tables as we’ve done in the past, I’ve gotten to interview Colin, mainly for end of the year. theological review. But this time, we are coming together for a much more an honest, sad occasion. To talk today we’re going to talk about the life and ministry of Tim Keller. And really, there’s no one I’d like to interview more on Tim than you, Colin. You’ve known Tim for a long time, and you wrote a recent biography on his spiritual formation. And in there, you really actually didn’t get into his personal life very much. But I’d love to ask you a personal question. Just to begin, I’d love to hear how did you meet him? And how did your friendship develop over the years? And how did you convince him to let you write a biography on him? Because we know he’s private. We know he’s written a book on being self forgetful. And so how did you convince him to let you write this biography on his life?

Collin Hansen
Oh, boy has a question we would have to have reserved for Tim himself. And one that I asked many different times. But I got to know Tim in 2007. So our relationship has always been intertwined with the gospel coalition. So first time I met him was at the gospel coalition national conference, the first one 2007. So no, this is your division now that you oversee at TGC. But that was a was obviously a life changing event. For me. It was covering the the event for the gospel or for the Christian today at the time. And then I was about to enroll as a student at Trinity where it was hosted where Don Carson, our longtime president and co founder with Tim was, was a professor. And so I had, I knew a little bit of the gospel coalition from Don. And I remember saying, Oh, wow, I mean, I’m writing this book, young versus reformed. And it’d be great if I could sit in on your meetings and just sort of learn and listen and the help from my book, and Don’s response was absolutely not, under no conditions, will you be allowed? So okay, well, all right. And then I came in and went to the first public meeting, and I heard him give his message, gospel centered ministry. This is his famous Jesus’s the true and better sermon. And that was breathtaking. And I got to talk to him a little bit afterward, I wanted to interview him for the book. He did not want to do that. But if for some strange reason, and really, Melissa, this goes to your second question, for some strange reason. I had the idea with my friend, Madison Trammell, who’s at Moody publishers at the time to ask Tim to co edit a series of books on cultural engagement. This is around the time when Tim’s first two books became bestsellers. The reason for god of the prodigal God he published ministers of mercy, called the Jericho Jericho wrote earlier, but these were his first two major, major releases. And for some reason, unknown to me, he said yes to our proposal, we published the first book city of man with Pete Waner, and in the late Michael Gerson and edited three other books together culminating with my book blind spots, which I’m sad to say it’s kind of just a poor man’s version of Tim’s own work. And then when the around that time, I started talking to a number of people that are just saying somebody needs to write about Tim, somebody has to do this. And I figured it wouldn’t be me. I figured it needs to be somebody in New York. I just thought it can’t be mean. And then the pandemic came. And then the cancer diagnosis and 2020 came shortly thereafter. And it turned out that I just said, Okay, here’s the thing. Somebody has to write this. So I’m going to take the initiative, we’re going to talk with a publisher. And I said, really a publisher should reach should reach out because the thing was, I didn’t care if it was me who wrote the book. I just knew that somebody needed to do it needed Be somebody Tim would be comfortable with. So I said, you know, I’d be willing to do it. But here’s my recommendation. Whoever does the book, what I would recommend is that they not write directly about Tim necessarily. But I think what they need to do is write about the people who have influenced him. And a lot of people would have thought that I would have started the book by just interviewing Tim and talking to Tim. But if you actually know him, and you got to spend time over the years with him, you would you would see that he, he would just deflect you toward Jesus and toward other people that he’d learned from. And he just didn’t like to answer a lot of those personal questions. And to this date. I’ll leave this to future historians, I guess, like, I don’t know if he ever kept a journal. I don’t know if he ever kept a diary like it never came up. I didn’t ask him, I don’t think he was going to be given me access anyway. to it. That’s not the project that I was pushing for. Because I just knew what I could do and what he would be interested in, and I, and I hope that final result is something that honors him by by letting us know a lot more about him. But mainly through him, having that final chance in his life to honor so many people starting with his wife, Kathy, and continuing on through all these mentors, who isn’t an amazing Melissa. Like, he now joins that cloud of witnesses. I mean, it’s just so fun to think of him with all of those heroes now, in front of their of all of our true and ultimate hero, Jesus Christ. That’s, that’s pretty amazing. And that really does give me a lot of comfort even in these sad days.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, yeah. I thought you did such a wonderful job in the book really helping us understand his formation, his theological formation, and I found that actually really helpful. Because it was it was actually a combination of how his life experiences were intersecting with the different theologians he was coming into contact with. Yeah, like I was amazed. He was going to these RC sprawl gab fest, you just think oh, wow, that’s amazing. All because you live up in Pennsylvania. And this is absolutely right. And you’re like, Oh, well, that’s nice that he was the guy down the street leading the gab fest. You know, I mean, it’s just fascinating to watch how the Lord did. Yeah, just he is determining our path and our steps to form our our minds, as well as show us the way to go. It’s just really interesting. It’s

Collin Hansen
a it’s a good example. Because, yeah, he got to know Ligonier. Valley Studies Center because his family had moved to Western Pennsylvania from Allentown and it was a local initiative at the time. This is pre Orlando days for Ligonier. So when they’re actually in that valley, and yeah, just so happened that he would marry another woman who had been at Ligonier Valley Study Center, because she grew up in that area. So yeah, I mean, what an amazing Providence. And I just thought it was, it was a good way to honor the Lord’s work through so many others. I mean, you Elizabeth Elliott, of course, is one that we’ve talked about there before. I don’t, I don’t think Tim and Kathy went to Gordon Conwell, because of Elizabeth Elliott, not that I’m aware of. I didn’t hear that from them. But she happened to have been teaching there and had a profound influence on their life. And I think it should give us encouragement to look back on our own lives to see how the Lord has steered us through our circumstances in some wonderful and unexpected ways.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, yeah. And he’s constantly doing something that nothing is left just to chance he’s working and all these twists and turns. And it’s just a beautiful story of God’s providence. And that’s what I love that the book does. It really points to how God is forming and fashioning Tim. But it’s hopeful in that he’s doing that to all of us to he’s doing that in all of our lives. And I think Tim would be the first to say, I’m not special. This is just how God is special. And he’s working in our lives. And so it was, it was great to read. Well, since Tim’s death, there has been, you know, just this outpouring of response from I think all these surprising places, like places that we wouldn’t have stories we wouldn’t have known or heard of, has there been anything in particular that has surprised you, as you read different accounts, different reflections, as different people have shared and taught?

Collin Hansen
Well, I’m glad that President Bush had issued a statement. That was a relationship that I don’t know that I would necessarily describe as as deep but of course, one of the pivotal moments in both of their lives they intersected, and those were the 911 attacks. And we know that both of them are have been voracious readers and wind raging readers we know of President Bush’s spiritual interests as well. And so that was really that was really encouraging to be able to see there. I think it’s just been, it’s just been really encouraging. I’m not surprised to see multiple tributes in The New Yorker, including our last interview guests here on gospel bound Molly Worthen. It was funny, Melissa was reading that and I just kept thinking, How is this person so insightful on all these historic and contextual to Oh, right, because she’s literally one of the world’s leading historians of this, of this subject of evangelicalism and all that kind of stuff. So that was fascinating to read. And, of course, Tim’s friend, Pete Waner, and Michael Luo, in the New Yorker, were just a wonderful, wonderful tribute there as well, a longtime Redeemer member, I heard from James Davis and Hunter. And I think one thing that’s been blessing me is just being able because I got to talk to Tim, so much about the book, and about his influences is for me to be able to offer a kind of benediction to others that they may not have known from Tim. So with Professor hunter from Virginia, I just mentioned to him that I don’t know that I ever heard Tim refer to someone else’s work more often than his, and just how that dog would fellowship from the mid 2000s, that Hunter had organized that Tim had participated in that reading group had really changed his life and ministry trajectory. And, and I don’t think, Professor Hunter, I don’t think he knew that. And so it’s just been kind of like a memorial service or a funeral is where it brings together all these people who have been last and in their lives have intersected through this individual. And they’re kind of able to make some of those connections themselves. That’s been a, that’s been a beautiful, a beautiful thing. And there’s still a lot of stories out there that are untold that sometimes you can see, you might, you might have somebody that was known for being really opposed to some attempts, views. That could be somebody within the Christian church, could be somebody outside the church, and you’ll see them make a little comment. And most people don’t know how much of a relationship there was behind the scenes between Tim and that person of debate and evangelism and things like that, that were happening. So I’ve kind of kept some of those to myself, but I’ve just made note of them as I’ve watched them on social media.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, I loved your podcast with Molly, if you haven’t listened, I hope everyone will go back and go back

Collin Hansen
one episode and listen, yeah,

Melissa Kruger
go back and listen. But one thing that really struck me was it wasn’t just her friendship with JD it was the JGS connection with Tim. And yeah, how great to have JD and Tim giving you book recommendations. I’m like, Yes, this is great.

Collin Hansen
Well, who doesn’t become a Christian? And

Melissa Kruger
I’m like, wow, this is after you got? Yes. But it was just this beautiful availability that I saw from both. And really, you know, because both have these big, large public ministries. And yet, at the heart is just the desire to share the gospel with a lost soul, whomever it may be,

Collin Hansen
I think, Melissa that that is primarily a gift of a gift that God had turned into a gift from the cancer. Because Tim, has been so responsible for several major, major institutions, city to city, of course, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, and the gospel coalition. And with those, especially with city to city in the recent years, he’s had major responsibilities and he helps to raise funds and helps to set direction he teaches RTS in New York, as well. And some of that he was able to still be able to do teaching via zoom and saw some comments from from Jay Harvey to that effect of seven hour zoom calls, you know, Zoom teaching that he would do. So Tim really thrived in this medium and keep in mind, I did basically my entire book that way, as well because it was the pandemic when I was working on it. It was really the height of so much of that so but yeah, it’s just yeah It’s just, it’s just a it’s a lot to process. It’s a lot to behold. But like, he got a lot of time to be able to just correspond with some people and talk to some people that have plus that availability was something that God seemed to work out of the terrible terminal diagnosis of the pancreatic cancer.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, one thing I have been not not necessarily surprised by but I’ve just noted is, it seemed like Tim had a lot of different correspondence, correspondence with women ministry leaders. And yeah, we’re in a complementarian context to Emma’s complementarian Cathy’s a complementarian. But one thing I just loved was his encouragement to a lot of women’s ministry leaders just across across a variety of backgrounds. What do you think we in the complement terian circles can learn from that type of engagement.

Collin Hansen
Tim did not strike me and I guess I’m not the ultimate source on this. He didn’t strike me as somebody who was awkward around women certainly did not strike me as somebody who was threatened in any way, by women, I have to think that it goes back to the very beginning with him with his dominant Italian Catholic mother. Jumping ahead there to a very, you know, outspoken and strong willed and convicted wife in Kathie Lee. Well, I should put in the middle there, of course, Barbara Boyd, first female staff member at InterVarsity. Christian Fellowship, you taught him basic inductive Bible study method. So just seemed to be a normative streak in him, of holding two things in common that women have absolutely vital roles to be played in life, the church everywhere else, that it’s not narrowly confined to certain biological realities, but it’s never less necessarily, that’s something to be celebrating at the same time. But never falling into stereotypes. So those two things were held in common, the valuing women that women have so much to give, and that they don’t need to be squished into a certain mold. And in fact, he spent most of his life surrounded by women who did not fit that mold. And that was one of the reasons that the church was able to thrive in New York City. Because that church, I just heard from another one of the leaders. Today, Vaughn Sawyer, who was a huge help in my book, first leader for hope of New York, which was in many ways, Tim’s baby, that mercy ministry, because that’s what he was. If Tim was the expert in anything, it was mercy ministries and Presbyterian and Reformed churches. That was his academic study. And this was avons ministry that she started. In my book, famously, she’s the she’s the one to whom Tim preached the girl nobody wanted for her wedding during the worship service. Yes, there are. So you can just see this, you do see this trend that he’s simultaneously upholding the biblical convictions and upholding them strongly. But not seeing that as inconsistent with being surrounded by and encouraging and equipping strong women. And I would hope that that’s something that we can truly appreciate, and continue to advocate for as part of his legacy.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, I can’t remember one time I was in one of those awkward Green Room Green Room moments where it was at the National Conference. So you know, at the Women’s Conference, I’m in my Yeah, I mean, all the women are, know each other, we’re hugging brain and cry, you know, whatever. We’re doing all the things we’re talking. And it was one of the times I walk into the green room, and it’s just a wonderful group of men in there. But you know, very prepared to go sit on the couch and look at my phone. Like that was my, my, I was totally fine with that. I was like, I’m definitely the odd one in this room. And I’ll just accept that quietly. And it was just interesting. I sat on the couch and all of a sudden I had pops up behind me, it’s Tim. And he just starts chit chatting with me. And it was it was just so kind and I think he had this amazing ability to see people without making you feel watched. So there’s a real there’s a real different pondering on this. Some people in our world, it make you feel very watched. Like just okay, I might step outside of this band or this band and they’re watching, Tim, I think kind of wonderful way of seeing people male and female. Just seeing them seeing their humanity wanting to understand their perspective and where they were coming from. And that’s just a beautiful thing. I think first of all to learn from to see rather than to watch. They’re very different, maybe views of people, but I definitely felt it, felt it from him. So in the book, you quote Tim writing about his mentor Ed Clowney saying, This is what he said it was possible to be theologically sound and completely Orthodox, and yet, unfailingly gracious, are rare and precious combination. I think it’s interesting that what he valued in his mentor, um, he’s so exemplified in his ministry. So how can Tim’s relationship with Ed kind of shape how we think about mentoring, especially in ministry, that it’s both thought and character like these two things are working in tandem together? And maybe even for a younger pastor or younger ministry leader? What should you be looking for, and people that you want you want to learn from?

Collin Hansen
Well, you know, what stands out to me, Melissa, interestingly, is that Tim was not a very likely candidate to be mentored. So here’s what I mean by that. Now, he was available. And he obviously was a very precocious student. Okay. And you will, you clearly would have known that. But what stood out to me is that even though RC Sproul had a big role in their life, he was not a, they were not part of his club. And they were, it was a personality mismatch. Tim and Kathy’s personality and RCS, were just not, not a great match for each other. You know, RC loved a lot of things about life, including his Pittsburgh sports team. So no matter how much they would have tried, I don’t think the killers are ever gonna be able to bring themselves to care much about sports. And, you know, so things like that. And then I think this was really significant that in seminary, Tim was never selected to be basically what we would know as like a teaching assistant to get a receive a Byington. Fellowship. And you look back on that now and you think, how is that possible? How could these professors not have seen this in him? But then I even go back to one of my favorite stories that I’ve shared many times from the book, Bruce Henderson, best man at the killer’s wedding, who says they must have been desperate, in reference to going to the church and we’re in Hopewell, Virginia. And, and I say, Well, of course he had Tim and Kathy, they didn’t think they get a job. They’re going to be postal workers. He says, No, it was the church that was desperate to hire Tim and Kathy, I just go back to that and say, I guess this is a little bit of a David moment where we go based on what the you know, the Lord sees the heart. The world looks for souls. But the Lord sees the heart. I don’t think if you had a whole lineup and in fact, this is almost literally what happened. If you had a lineup of the first generation of young, PCA pastors rising in the generation, so PC only goes back only goes back to 71. So if you saw, if you saw a lineup of all of them, the usual suspects, you wouldn’t have sent him to New York. He wasn’t the one with the Harvard MBA. He wasn’t the one with the confrontational personality. He wasn’t the one. He was the one who had a C in his preaching class. Now, he, of course, was a great preacher, but just his his mode of being professorial, and, you know, just calmer and then not particularly animated. I think people would have thought, Ah, I suppose that can that that’s probably good for a seminary classroom. Or maybe that could be good for Boston, maybe he should go back there where he did his graduate education. But it wasn’t considered to be a good fit for New York. But again, the Lord sees the heart. The Lord knows. So I guess, in both directions, in wanting to be mentored and wanting to mentor, I think we’ve got to navigate that dynamic of not be looking for the Saul’s, but looking for the David’s looking looking for the heart, looking for that teachability. And that willingness, and also maybe then, especially just to say this, I would encourage people don’t so much run after those figures whose public ministry you admire so much, but about those whose character and private life you know, to be above reproach. It’s not that the two can’t coexist. It’s just that the one is more of what we look at for the Saul’s tallest, the smartest, the strongest. and not the David’s the last. But what’s going to last and enduring ministry is character. And I think if Tim was the smartest man in evangelicalism, they didn’t have the character, you wouldn’t see seeing any of these tributes you’re seeing no,

Melissa Kruger
no, that’s right. I was thinking that we have a lot of different school rooms that we sometimes discount. So there’s the actual classroom. Yeah, whether it’s Gordon Conwell or Westminster, places like that, but maybe a small rural church in Virginia was the classroom where certain pastoral characteristics could develop in a way that helped him preach anywhere. Because, you know, he was with real people, in real circumstances, and people, whether we’re in a rural context or a city context, in a lot of ways, our heart issues and the things we’re walking into church with every Sunday are very similar. You know, but he actually knew I was so struck in your book when you talked about like going on hospital rounds, and watching how the other person did it. I think, yeah, that’s, that’s what we’re hearing in the preaching that we later got. Yeah, yeah, it was that he had sat at people’s bedsides. Yeah, he had done done a different classroom, exercise work by just being a pastor that no one knew. And that I think we all can hear that in some of some of his his sermons. Oh, and

Collin Hansen
creating a crazy observation hear that we can now say with finality Kennedy smart is that pastor who helped bring him to hope well, and who modeled for him? Kenny smart has outlived Tim, we just don’t know. No, no, no, no. How many days in a matter of days and hours that we have a Kenny smart truly one of the great founding fathers of the PTA?

Melissa Kruger
Well, that leads me to another question. Yeah, he really was such a pastoral leader. Let me ask you this kind of culturally, why do we not see more pastors like Tim, in our churches today? Why was he so why is he so rare? Why is that combination so rare? Or maybe it’s not as rare? It’s just not what we see as much publicly? I don’t know. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, I’m gonna go back. And I don’t think I have a definitive answer to this, Melissa. But I do think there’s a generational dynamic at play here. And I mentioned this in the rise and fall of Mars Hill podcast, the generation of Gen X, pastors had a really difficult situation, they came to the church planting movement was converging in this direction that Tim was himself as largely responsible for as anybody else, just as the internet was converging down from this other direction. And so the internet does, it undermines a lot of institutions where you might have to pay your dues and rise up. While simultaneously people are saying you need to get out there and rapidly multiply churches. That’s not what Tim would say, necessarily. But there was a broader kind of goal of we need to be a lot more aggressive about about planting churches, when you combine the incredibly difficult task of planting a church, which is often left to younger men. And then for a lot of, you know, energy and and openness and, you know, maneuverability reasons. And the Combine that with the internet that now says that you can go directly to the next big thing. That’s a really bad combination. And it does uniquely seem to have hit Gen X pastors in a way that it didn’t hit millennials. Because people my age and younger watched those folks burnout. And it didn’t hit boomers, in the same way. They’ve had a lot of their own challenges. But it didn’t hit them quite the same way. Because many of them had already come up in the institutional world, it wasn’t really easy for them to become prominent in the same way. So there seems to be something in that middle generation. That is especially difficult. And let me take that out of the situation and just kind of bring it into the normative here and say, when you combine easy access to faraway fame, with the intense crucible of church planting, as hard to see how that combination goes very well. And you don’t even need the fame necessarily, like there’s plenty of ways that you can get trapped in here but I think you know, Tim, just try this other explanation, I think that’s part of it, Melissa. But here’s the other thing that occurs to me. Many people come into ministry being called through affirmation. You are good at teaching people about Jesus. That’s a good thing that you should do people like you when you teach about Jesus. Tim didn’t have that experience, his call to ministry came at odds with his mother, especially because she wanted him to go to her church, Evan Jellicle, Congregational Church, instead he went PCA. So there’s a lot of conflict there. He was in conflict with many of his undergraduate religion, professors. He was in. He did have some, you know, some, you know, he had good experiences with the professors, but he wasn’t mentored by any of his professors in seminary, then he goes to this obscure place. I don’t think he formed if circumstances did not lend themselves to him forming a big ministry ego, where you could easily align success with, with godliness. Now, Tim is the most effective person I’ve ever seen at being able to address this dynamic administers because it is how he’s bent. He has a perfect he was a performer. He was a he was a people pleaser. He wanted to be liked. That’s what he that’s the grace dynamic he wanted to make. He was a workaholic, as well. He wanted to make his he kind of you wanted to do things for Jesus more than more than dwell. Later in his life, he started to do more dwelling. Or you always did that. I’m not trying to discount that. But he’s he became to make, he came to see that more prominently in there. But I think it just probably helped him that he didn’t have from an early age people whispering in his ear, how great he was. We talked about Jesus. And the last thing I tell him was that one of the best things I ever did in ministry is that Trinity had to do some cross cultural ministry, an internship, and I did youth ministry. And youth ministry was amazing, because those kids didn’t care a lick who I was, or what I done. And by this time I had already published I’ve done a number of other things. They just got old guy Exactly. And an old guy was probably 28 years old or something like that at the time. And but they did care if I took an interest in them if I loved them. And that’s a little bit more akin to the kind of ministry experience he had. They cared about you. Sure, it’s great if you could preach your wonderful sermons, but they cared about you if you read their birthday party, or your you know, you help them in crisis, or you showed up when they needed your help, that kind of thing. So I just think as a really long answer to your question, but I I think it can be explored at multiple levels. But one of the most simple is that being obscure and out of the way to resolve that you’re not going to use ministry to get ahead in life is probably a pretty good and necessary thing. I think every pastor has to be disenchanted with that. If they’re going to survive in ministry.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah. And it really is a grace. So I’m thinking about a seminary student. Yeah, not any one in particular, I’m thinking of someone who maybe has been passed over to be a professor’s TA and we I see some reasons all the time here at RTS. Or maybe, maybe they’re not even the strongest preacher right now. Whatever it might be. I think it’s really helpful. What what you say we’re because there’s, there’s a long walk with Jesus, where he can develop us and grow us into exactly how he wants to use us. And actually, early success might not might be a great burden to have to bear. He got to form opinions and thoughts, not having to correct his article he wrote when he was 30. I mean, I think about that. I’m like, What a grace that I, I’m like, so glad I wasn’t writing at 30. I mean, I think about that type of kind of freedom to learn and grow and even have your ideas exchange with real people in real context. And he had all that marinating time, before he was publishing. And

Collin Hansen
I mean, I’m, I’m, I’m 42 He was 57 when he started writing his best selling books and when he was publishing them, but again, who will ever and I’ve been able to publish a few books, but like, no one in history, no one has matched his 2008 to 2022 string of publishing. I just, I have a hard time imagining it’s like, it’s like Cal Ripken is enduring And, you know, record in Major League Baseball, I don’t understand how anybody can do that. But it’s because of the work he was doing in his 20s. In his 30s, in his 40s, into his 50s. He was writing, he was serving, he was serving actual people, people, he knew people in Hopewell people in New York City, he was serving those people he saw himself primarily serving them, his students at Westminster seminary, that I think is maybe one of the most enduring legacies that we need to respect is, is that substituting an internet audience for actual people that we know the internet is, is also people in reality, I’m just saying it’s way easier to grasp for that, than it is to work with the difficult people that we all are in real life in three dimensions. And so, but really, what’s best for the long haul? is when your ministry to the public comes out of your ministry in private? Absolutely. Tim, Tim modeled that for sure.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, one thing I was so struck by, in the book was this quote, when he was when you’re talking about him moving to New York, I thought this was just really a fascinating assessment of himself. What held him back more than anything else was the realization that his prayer and spiritual life couldn’t handle the scope of the project. I just thought of that, like, what humility, like he looked at himself, and he said, Yeah, I’m not I’m not gonna go for the job. Because I, I’m not my spiritual life isn’t ready for this. And in some ways, I want to say, well, that means you are ready, you know, if I if I were talking to someone, but how did you see that progression of his spiritual life continuing to grow throughout his ministry? As you were looking at? Why?

Collin Hansen
Well, it’s, it’s related to what we’ve been talking about with his prayer life in the end, because it is interesting, Melissa, that that observation? I think that observation came in revisions on my book, because when I looked around different places, I don’t think I don’t think that’s the story that he told fully in public. He probably has shared that in private. But I think that came in in revisions, as I talked with him about the book because he thought he would talk a lot about Kathy and how he wanted to defer to Kathy and Kathy didn’t want to go, and he’s trying to find others who were better fit. But I think it was toward the end of the book writing process where he said, No, really, I, I just knew I’d be exposed. I’d be exposed. And, you know, he felt burnt out after hope well, and wet and Westminster was a really good respite. For him, it was a really good fit for his gifting. And I think that’s one of the dangers as a as anybody in ministry, but especially as a professor, and as a teacher, it is a little bit easier to hide your lack of spiritual life. You know, when you’re going to running through a lot of the same things that you’ve taught before, and all that kind of stuff. You’re not having to come up with new sermons every week for the same people who’ve been hearing you, you know,

Melissa Kruger
every three years exactly. Hold it together for three years. And they

Collin Hansen
know you, they can tell if you’re into it, they can tell if you’re engaged with it. They kind of know you know, your attitude about different things. I think that was daunting. But just that jumping back into pastoral ministry combined with the pressures he knew were going to come in New York, that really forced him to say I’ve got to kind of cling closely to Christ in prayer. But one of the things that I had heard, even just recently, among his final days, was him mentioning to someone read my book on prayer. Not enough people are reading my book. And but I don’t think it’s because he was worried about the book royalties. I think it was because in the end, it’s that intimacy with Christ that matters. And so, yeah, of course, we know the story about Tim and Kathy, learning to pray together after the crisis following their health crisis and, and the attacks of September 11, the idea that if there were a pill that you took every day that would ensure that you survived, would you take it? Of course you would. Well, that’s what prayer is. In a marriage and in life, if you knew you had to do it to survive, would you do it? Of course he would. So why aren’t you praying? So yeah, that’s our friend and colleague Ivan Mesa, through my work with the Keller Center for Cultural apologetics is all often reminded me, Colin, do not forget that at the core of Tim Keller is that piety, a love for Christ. So whatever you do with the Keller center, do not forget that role of prayer that intimacy with Christ. And so you saw it even literally until his his dying days, but it was, it was there throughout his life.

Melissa Kruger
Well, that speaks a little bit, you’re talking about the Keller Center, which has just formed, it was just launched this year. And that really speaks to a desire to continue Tim’s legacy, in a lot of ways, like what he the way he was pastoring the way he was as a thought leader in the church. How does the Keller center really want to keep that legacy alive? What’s what’s the goal of the Keller center? And what are you trying to do through that?

Collin Hansen
You know, Melissa, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for somebody to just go back and perpetuate the works of Tim Keller. Because it’s still the best stuff we have on a whole bunch of different things. But there’s also not necessarily Tim’s own vision. The last time I was together with him in person was, believe it or not, four years ago, three and a half years ago, December 2019, before the cancer and before the pandemic. And what stood out to me there, as he said, I just don’t think you guys can go back and rehash my stuff, I just don’t think it’s you need to do in your day, what I did in my day. So it’s not so much the I don’t have to think about the form function here. We’re not trying to repeat what he said, kind of what we’re trying to focus on the how. So the what he did in his time, like, let’s say, for example, his work on idolatry. That’s classic Tim Keller to combine a sociological and cultural situation, to be able to speak, sin, to speak about sin and preach about sin in a way that modern ears will be able to hear, to circumnavigate their defenses towards some of the traditional approaches to guilt. Okay, but keeping but rooting it in the history of teaching on idolatry from Martin Luther and Augustine and going all the way back to the Scriptures themselves. But he would say, instead of just going back and repeating that again, today, maybe what the Keller center needs to do is find what is that breakthrough way to talk about sin, or whatever other theological concept today, in your generation to my grandchildren. That’s what the Keller Center is dedicated to doing a collaborative work on that. So not just the repeating of the what of his legacy, but that how have he brought, he brought together a modern approach for today’s here’s within a modern sensibility with an orthodox, historic, biblical approach. It’s really kind of a summary of him. And it’s the summary of what we’re trying to do with the center.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, and it will be impossible to do it without prayer. I mean, if any of you lacks wisdom, what she Oh, pray and ask God because we can’t, we can’t take ancient truth and apply it in a modern context in our own fine, finite pneus. We need Infinite Creator of all the world to help us. And I think too often we do, maybe just try to learn from someone and say, let’s apply it to this context. It doesn’t work. And I think there’s a reason I think the Lord wants us utterly dependent upon him, just like we were talking about earlier. And so he will keep us dependent. And so old, old shoes, in some ways may not fit. But the same means well prayer, the word, and then I think he was just curious and listen to them. And so seeing people as humans, being curious about them, listening to them, praying for the Lord, to bring revival and breakthroughs and being anchored in the Word. I mean, I think that hopefully, the Keller center will create, continue going down that path, and who knows where it will lead your practice.

Collin Hansen
Well, last point here, as sophisticated as you want to imagine Tim Keller was he was, but as simple and applicable, as his message is, it is. Yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s just, that’s what the gospel is. We can spend an eternity studying it. but you can also understand it with a snap of a finger.

Melissa Kruger
That’s right. So you don’t have to read all that temps read No. Hurry to the same God victim was

Collin Hansen
right. Same gospel, same God, same gospel.

Melissa Kruger
That’s right. That’s right. Well, I opened with a personal question. I want to close with one, if you’re willing to talk about what was the last time we talked to Tom? And what are you gonna miss most about your friend?

Collin Hansen
Yeah, so I got a chance to talk with him with the other fellows of the Keller center via zoom. At the end of at the end of April, we were gathered together in New York, and he was just coming back from his treatments in, in Maryland. And, of course, this was unfortunately the a series of a series of health difficulties that would end up claiming his life. But we got to talk with him for an hour, and he’d been really sick that day. really sick had been really bad, he just really had a hard time keeping food down. And, and really just, so it’s just part of the end process, but he wanted to be with us. He wanted to talk with us. And I think all of us in the room, all 24 fellows of the Keller center plus staff, I think we will not soon forget that time that we had. And I will miss his random calls, when he would insult me for having nothing better to do than to pick up the phone and talk to or about some other random thing that he’d seen from me. I’ll just, I’ll miss the email out of the blue. I’ll miss the question that I can’t ask him, I’ll miss. I’ll just miss those conversations about ministry and life, I’ll miss his support. For anybody who appreciates the ministry of this podcast or me or the gospel coalition. You don’t you don’t know the half of his support for that it simply would not be possible without him. And so I’ll miss that. But for as much as I’ll miss, he gave so much more by God’s grace that, that no one or nothing can ever take away from us. And that’s a beautiful, beautiful thing. And so even though I miss a lot, I’m, I’m really full of thanks.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, such a faithful ministry, really up until the end. I mean, I think the last even just to the last words, I thought I would close actually, with a little bit of Narnia, so perfect. The last battle, I haven’t made it through reading this without crying. But I’m going to try for all of us because I think Louis did such an amazing job of representing heavenly truths. And so I read this and was just able to just rejoice in the Good News of the Gospel, and what will all be our reality one day and so this is the end of the last battle. And it says the difference between the old Garni and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country. Every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more. I can’t describe it any better than that. If you ever get there, you will know what I mean. It was a unicorn unicorn who summed up what everyone else was feeling. He stamped his right for hoof on the ground and made and then he cried. I have come home at last. This is my real country. I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though. I never knew it till now. The reason why we love the old Narnia, Narnia is that sometimes it looked a little like this Bry he he come further up and further in. And that’s what Tim is doing now. And so we rejoice in that, that he lived in that hope. And yes, he was ready to defend it. But it really was I think the watching world saw the hope that Tim had for a better country. And he gets to enjoy that now and we look forward to being there one day with him.