Keller’s Formation: Behind the Book

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Jim Davis
Hello and welcome to a very unique episode of gospel bound. My name is Jim Davis, pastor of Orlando Grace Church and host of the as in Heaven podcast here at TGC. And I am joined by a first time guest here on gospel bound. Colin Hanson, who is the vice president of content and chief editor of the gospel coalition. Thank you, Colin, for joining me today.

Collin Hansen
This is a little weird, Jim. But I’m glad to be here.

Jim Davis
And I will say that this is we’re in full emergency mode in Orlando, Florida, we’re under tornado warnings and watches and thundering and so if you hear some of that in the background, that’s what that is. As many of you know, this is Collins podcast, where he is normally the host, but today we are trading seats and I get to interview him about his forthcoming book titled Tim Keller, his spiritual and intellectual formation published by Zondervan. Now I’ve said this often that 500 years from now, I think, maybe two pastors or theologians will be remembered, and I believe that Tim Keller will be one of them. The influence that he has had in the 21st century is just hard to overstate, from his sermons, His books, His speaking his influence, and founding TGC, Redeemer city to city Redeemer church, just just to mention a few. And it’s fascinating to me to travel overseas, not only to see that he is actually known there. But to see how widely read he is and widely read in so many different theological streams. So it’s easy to see that Tim has influenced many. But in Collins new book, we get to see who influenced Tim, to make him who he is. So Colin, I know that Tim has had a big influence on you. Can you tell us exactly how he’s had an influence on you and how you decided to write this book.

Collin Hansen
So I got to know Tim, in 2007, I was working on my first book, young, restless reformed, and I ran up to him at a gospel coalition conference. In fact, it was the first gospel coalition conference, it was held at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and I was just about to start there as a student, and and I said, Hey, I’m working on this book, I’d like to be interviewed, or like, I’d like to interview you. And keep in mind, Tim was not a really well known figure. At the time, I’d heard reference to him. A Christian today had covered him thing Andy Crouch had written about him. And we knew a lot about him just because of 911, and things like that. And maybe I’d heard about a book that was coming out next year. That was the reason for God. 2008 he published both the prodigal God and the reason for God. And so I Yeah, big year. Yeah, no doubt about it. So So I asked him about this. And, and he said, Yeah, I mean, I’m not really interested in in doing that interview, but you can send me some questions. So I sent him some questions. And he responded with one word answers. Thank you, Tim. So I pretty much went ahead with that book without, without a lot of, you know, mention of Tim. And, but from there, we actually began to work on a series of books together. And it was a series of books based on different aspects of cultural engagement. We were added to the book together by Michael Gerson and Pete Waner, and called city of man about politics, did a couple more of those as well culminated in my book blind spots in 2015, which is just kind of rip, ripping off some aspects of what Tim has talked about in places like Senator church. And so that also through the gospel coalition, we we had been working together for a long period of time. But I would say that the number one area that struck me about Tim from the beginning was the way he articulates the concept of theological vision. And especially the way he lays that out in the Gospel coalition is foundation documents. I just never seen anything like that before, Jim, the way that way that you could, you could have a positive, but also critical approach to culture from a theological foundation that would shape your life and your ministry. I just had never seen something like that before. And that was the number one area and then I think, Jim, I was just the right age. Because mentioned right there in the seminary. You’ve got his first two books come out, and then it has just been a parade of hits. Since then center church comes out when I’m early at at TGC. And early in ministry and everything else meaning of marriage, and 2012. And I remember that was when I was living out in New York, New York City area. And then we brought we use some a Kathy Keller’s advice for a friend of ours who was living with a man that she was engaged to but he was not a Christian. She broke up with him. am on Cathy’s advised. I mean, there was just all kinds of things. And, and so so much of my ministry, since my mid 20s, has been against the backdrop of Tim’s publishing, and just the rise of the gospel coalition. And so it’s, it’s been, it’s been a major influence, I think, you know, certainly the biggest, biggest influence on on my life.

Jim Davis
Well, you know, with your proximity to Keller over the years, being a formative figure in your life, the things you talked about founding the organization that you’ve given so much of your life to, how did you prevent this book from being a hagiography that is an overly idealized perspective of Tim.

Collin Hansen
In a lot of ways that’ll be the judge of the readers to figure out if I was able to avoid that. But I had a lot of good help from, from Tim himself, but then also, especially from his friends and his his colleagues. And I remember one colleague in particular, she was an important member early on at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. And she would alternate between crying with thankfulness for Tim’s ministry, and everything that he had taught and shown her about the Lord. And then as soon as she could see me feverishly taking notes about what she was saying, she would turn right around and say, but don’t you dare make him out to be a saint? Don’t you dare do that. He made a lot of mistakes, we were really angry. And that was because she had been on staff at the church as well. And so I would say one of the more pointed aspects of the book relates to submit Tim struggles as a manager. And so the reason I say that I had Tim Tim’s help is because Tim just doesn’t cast himself as somebody who’s above the grace that He proclaims he, he, he talks about his, he doesn’t he doesn’t like conflict, he tends toward people pleasing. And, I mean, I don’t think a lot of us can relate with that. But, and he’s very clear to me, he told me in the book, that he’s not a very good leader, I say in the book, that that’s not correct. He is a good leader, just isn’t a good manager. And, but I’ve spent Jim most of my career around pretty successful pastors. And not many of them are good managers. But beyond that, beyond that, just nobody’s good at everything. And so I just always had that perspective. And I also got some help from another one of Tim’s colleagues who said to me, that the people who are closest to Tim don’t idolize him. Now the people who are most prone to do that are the ones who are kind of listening to him or reading him at a distance. That didn’t mean that the people close to him have a negative view, they just see him as a human being, and one that they deeply admire. But as a as a human being. I think it also helps a lot to know Tim and Kathy together. Because that’s when you when you truly understand both of them is when they’re together. And, and you just, it’s just very human. They’re just, they’re just a couple, and they they work through things and, and you’ll have some interesting conversation when you’re talking, so it’s, uh, yeah, so I mean, I hope I hope the book is written from that people can sense my appreciation, and in many ways, my debt to Tim, but my job as the writer was to present his story on his terms, especially through the perspective of those people who influenced him. So in many ways, the book is not always me assessing Tim, it’s just talking with him about, say, his mentor at clowny, or about Barbara Boyd, who taught him to read the Bible. So that’s another reason the book, I hope avoids that hagiography because it’s not necessarily just a book about

Jim Davis
Well, I appreciate I will say, I think you accomplish what you set out to do, and will in both regards, but the first one, and not over idealizing him because it was really and I did love the book. So I enjoyed that. I’m not paid to say that I really did enjoy that. And in the early years and Redeemer as they grew, you write about the frustrations the staff had and what we talked about it and one of our staff meetings, just what got them through that though, was Tim’s character, as frustrated as people were, you know, his his character caused them to stay by him. And you explain how how that worked itself out in the book. Alright, so most listeners, they’re aware of Tim’s current health issues, I would assume. Would you be able to give us a recent update on how he’s doing health wise.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, sure. So there was a sense of urgency that came with this project back in 2020. Because that was the year Tim turned 70. But it was also the year that end when the world shut down. And also when he got his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Now, from the beginning, we knew that this was a fairly early detection. But pancreatic cancer is still pancreatic cancer, there is a 100% death rate from it. And what we, and I would say the amazing thing is, well, Tim has been unavailable at different times, and has had one massive health scare in the middle of that. Otherwise, the treatments have been, I mean, they’ve been, they’ve been very effective. I mean, where he is right now is just, I don’t know how you could be more positive about somebody with with pancreatic cancer and, and he’s going through some experimental treatments and, and, and hopefully, those will work. And hopefully, there’ll be the kind of treatments that the rest of us get someday when we’re when we’re faced with a similar situation. So he’s blessed by many people praying for him, the Lord has been kind in that regard. He’s been blessed with really good medical, medical care, even through the pandemic, which of course, complicates everything, when you imagine being afflicted with something as serious as pancreatic cancer, but as the world is trying to deal with this amazing, you know, pandemic, so, devastating pandemic so. So I would just say that our hope is that the Lord will continue to provide many years with Tim, and, and thankfully that that seems more plausible now than it did when we first just heard those, those dreaded words of pancreatic cancer.

Jim Davis
Oh, praise God for that. Call. And I know you’ve done a lot of research on this book, people may just assume you gleaned it as you went. But I’ve texted with you late at night, you’re listening to clowny lectures. I mean, you’ve done a ton of research. What in all that research, what’s surprised you the most about Tim Keller and his influences?

Collin Hansen
Well, I’ve got, I’ve got to give a shout out here. There’s no way you can succeed in these succeed in these endeavors without the help of some, well, some some providential helps. And I’ll cite two people in particular for that and, and hopefully tease enough of the books that people want to go check it out for themselves. I got to thank Louise Midwood. Louise was one of the classmates will Tim and Kathy at Gordon Conwell, she sent me a packet of documents from that early period. And I’ll just say that, we’re going to learn some interesting new things about the origins of Table Talk magazine. From that section. That was a I’m not, I’m not sure Jim. Hardly anybody knew what I had uncovered there. And, and it only pieced together because I had just read the newly published biography of RC sprawl. And, and, and then I got this packet from Louise Midwood. And I’m looking here, and I can’t believe my eyes, and I chase down the story and just kind of leave it there for readers to pick up themselves. But

Jim Davis
well, let me even say, I live. I live in Orlando, Florida, you know, RC was here, login years here. And I had never heard what you learned in that book.

Collin Hansen
I’m not sure they had Jim. I mean, we’re gonna we’re gonna find that out. I, I’m not sure they had known. That’s part of this story. So for me, as a, you know, as writing a lot of history, that’s one of those moments that you look back on and say, Huh, wow, that might be a genuinely new contribution to our understanding people. A lot of people just don’t know, the connections between the colors and the Sproles. Yeah, that RC had actually officiated their wedding. So and that they had participated at Ligonier Valley Study Center, which is near Pittsburgh, which is where Tim’s family had moved from Allentown and where Kathy grew up. And so there were a lot of those connections in there. That was back in the kind of the counterculture days of Ligonier Valley Study Center. So, but then connected to that I think the other person that I owe so much to is Craig Ellis Tim’s assistant. And I would say, Jim, that the emotional climax of the book, at least for me, is the is a death of Tim’s only brother, Billy in 1998. And naturally, I wanted to know if Tim had preached his brother’s funeral he had and I want to To know what he had to say. And Tim could not recall, at least what he’d had. I mean, there was, he said, I think there is a recording of it, but I don’t know where it is. But thankfully, I got the manuscript notes from Craig. And yeah, I’ll leave that to people to see. But the question I love to ask Jim is, what message do you think Tim Keller preached at his younger brother’s funeral, and just kind of let that sit with people. And so I’ll leave it with the listeners there to mull that over, and check it out in the book and see what he preached?

Jim Davis
Well, I won’t spoil the answer to that. But it was an emotional section and lots about Tim’s family that I had never never known. And it was neat to see God work in the midst of it. As I said, it, read the book, one thing that that moved me and maybe maybe convicted me as a better way to say it is Tim’s heart for and his dependence on prayer. And you especially see this in the early years of Redeemer, what, what what things moved you or convicted you as you worked on this project?

Collin Hansen
Well, let’s just stick on that theme. You see it as a consistent theme throughout Tim’s life. And you could add that later on with Tim’s earlier about with prostate cancer, as well as Cathy’s struggles with Crohn’s disease. And he said that around that September 11, period, they were both in, in in bad health. They were burned out because of the trauma, and all the aftermath of 911, the church was in rough shape. Now they lost a lot of money as a result of the kind of the recession in New York after the attacks. And, and you’ve seen this, this has come up in their writings, but they talk about how prayer is like taking a pill that keeps you alive. If you knew that you had to do this to survive, you wouldn’t miss it. And so that became the anchor of their own prayer life together, seeking the Lord together every single night, no exception if they weren’t together. That was even if they weren’t together. So that was a that was a significant part as well. But I loved what Kathy. I know, Jim, this was part of the book that stood out to you as well. But there’s a lot about Kathy in here, people are going to, I mean, she is the most significant influence on his life. And people are going to learn a lot in there. And I just loved what Kathy said about her early prayer letters for Redeemer Presbyterian Church. And she describes them as the whiny asked most pathetic prayer letter letters ever written history of missionaries that move out being a mom to three boys in New York, and she said, all these Presbyterian women felt so bad for her was so glad they weren’t in her situation, they’d send her five bucks to take the boys to McDonald’s. But I love how Kathy comes back and says there has been no church plant in the history of the church that has been prayed over more, and especially by women than Redeemer Presbyterian Church. And she says, If you really want to know how to start a successful mega church, find out where God is already working a revival and then move there, you know, a month later, or a month before, I think is what she said. And that just speaks to their sense that for all the hard work and all the vision and all the planning, in the end, only God could give that growth. And God gave that growth through the means of corporate prayer. And so I think that’s a good theme. Jim. I know that’s a that’s a convicting one for me, as well as somebody who doesn’t describe myself as a real natural when it comes to prayer. Well, let’s

Jim Davis
stick with Kathy for a little bit because I finished reading your book. And I found myself hoping your next project would be a biography of her, because I really I would not. I didn’t know much about Kathy to begin with. But I mean, I’m not going to spoil too much, but I can’t. She had a correspondence, a written correspondence with CS Lewis as a 12 year old because she just wanted to encourage what she thought was an old washed up author, she had no idea how big he was. So as a 12 year old, she was consuming CS Lewis writing CS Lewis, you talk about a lot of other things about her and because she was is the greatest influence in her husband’s life. So did you know much of her story before starting this project? And if not, what did you learn along the way?

Collin Hansen
I did. So Kathy and I have worked together for almost as long as Tim and I have she’s spoken at a number of gospel coalition events, especially our women’s conferences. She’s written book reviews for us. She’s written essays for us on raising children in the city she has written one of the most important articles in TGC is history about why you should not marry an unbeliever. So And, and Kathy is one of the most capable writers I mean she’s a she’s a professional editor not only on Tim’s works and a co author with some with with him on some of his some of his books, but then also previously worked as a book editor in Philadelphia. So that’s a lot of Kathy’s background. She was a student get an MA while Tim got an MDiv at Gordon Conwell. And she is I think the best perspective I got from her about her was from Liz Kaufman. Did Kaufman was the executive pastor at redeemer in the 1990s. And was really the person that was supposed to like Dick and Liz were supposed to plant that church in New York City. And we’re providentially hindered from doing so didn’t feel a release to be able to do it. It was it was a surprise situation there. But Indyk Unfortunately now has dementia. So I couldn’t talk with him. But I was able to talk with with Liz and Liz said that people don’t understand that Tim has had an editor inside his head this entire time. And that’s Kathy and that’s not just his books, of course that’s also his sermons. And Kathy has never been shy to point out when she thinks that Tim is on something or missed something and then we talk about the old one of our sea scrolls favorite things to do at Ligonier Valley Study Center where the gabfests all hours of night talks and Tim and Kathy would do that as well, especially when they moved to Hopewell, Virginia. And and Kathy would participate in those answering questions. And one of the parts that stood out to me, Jim, was the the comment from John guest, who amazingly is still with us as a longtime Episcopal priest and revivalist and evangelist and and John guest says that Kathy Christie. Now Keller is one is the greatest youth organizer in western Pennsylvania. And but I think when you when you put it all together and say what, what kind of woman is corresponding one of the last people are the last people to correspond with CS Lewis, who travels to the kilns the year after he dies as a teenager as a young teenager, and then goes on to be this force of nature as a youth organizer for for churches for ministries there and then goes on to Gordon Conwell. Yeah, I think if I wouldn’t be surprised, Jim, if the primary takeaway of the book about Tim Keller is for people to really see and understand the unique influence of Kathy.

Jim Davis
Yeah, I mean, you talk about I, she was really the one if I remember correctly, when they were deciding whether to plant redeemer in New York, she was the one that said, well, we need to do it. And she had a camera exactly how she said it?

Collin Hansen
Well, it was it was one of the it was one of my favorite parts of the book and something. There are many things I just didn’t know. I mean, you asked Jim earlier about, but just how I’ve known Tim, I mean, I’ve worked closely with them for a long time. And they were most of the things I think this book I didn’t know, before I started working on it. And so Kathy, the main reason Tim had said at least publicly that he wasn’t interested in the church is that he was worried about Kathy and the boys. And she just didn’t want to leave. She just didn’t want to just didn’t want to be in New York and have to raise those boys. Her thought was, what am I supposed to do? Tell him to go play in the street? Like, I don’t have any options here. And, and Tim comes back at one point. And he says, Well, I think Kathy we just can’t go and and I think it’s because, you know, I just I can’t do that to you and classic Kathy. Classic, Kathy gets mad at him and incur and demands that he step up as the leader. So it was like, I’m gonna do she’s like, don’t you make the decision, and I will deal with the Lord. You make the decision. You’re the husband, you’re the leader, you make the decision, I’ll deal with the Lord. And she did at Jack Miller’s church in in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia. And she was and she was released and she was prepared to go. But I just wanted to pick one of my favorite parts of the way. That’s just a good example of their dynamic. That Kathy is that Tim is very concerned for her trying to take care of her that she pushes back and says, you know, be a man. Take the lead. Make the decision. I’ll tell

Jim Davis
you, you know, you mentioned hope. Well, this is not a partisan story that I was very familiar with. You think of Tim Keller in New York City reaching cities. I think he spent the I think it was nine years in rural Hopewell, Virginia, right is hobo Virginia,

Collin Hansen
at 75 to 84. That’s right. Was it south of I mean, it’s semi rural south of Petersburg, or Richmond, I should say, kind of that Richmond Petersburg area. But yeah, so semi rural industry town put it that way, no Dupont, DuPont industry town.

Jim Davis
So his formations are I mean, you have on one extreme, you have the academic academia. But then you also have this church where he’s preaching three sermons a week, and he’s doing all the visitations on the on the edge of burnout. And that part of your the story that you told, and the ways that it formed him, I think, is really relatable to a lot of pastors around the country. So it was just interesting to see the wide variety of

Collin Hansen
15 1500 sermons preached there 1500 sermons that he preached years. And I’ll just give you one anecdote from that was talking with Bruce Henderson, who was the best man at their wedding, Tim’s best friend in college. And I was I was asking him about the move to hope well, from Gordon Conwell. And because, you know, obviously, they’re very young and and you’re moving into a church on a three month appointment in a congregation that has only two college graduates who are both elementary school teachers, and where most of the members did not complete their education beyond the sixth grade. Okay, as to context back there in the 19 1970s 75. And I asked Bruce about that. And he said, Yeah, Tim called me and, and was asking me some questions and obviously didn’t get paid very much. And, and Bruce says, yeah, they probably wouldn’t have made, you know, they wouldn’t have made a strong impression. And I’m just thinking, Well, yeah, I mean, I’m sure the church, you know, they must have been desperate, I think, is what he said. And said, Well, yeah, I mean, Tim and Kathy, were actually studying to be postal workers at early on training to be postal workers, because they couldn’t get hired in a church. Keep in mind, they had become Presbyterian, they’re wanting to do the PCA. They were complementarians male leadership. And they were in New England. And the PCA was brand new five years earlier. So there weren’t options for them. They didn’t have any connections in the south. So they just didn’t know that they had any options there. And and Bruce says, yeah, they must have been desperate and said, Yeah, of course, Tim and Kathy, were desperate. He said, No, I mean, the church must have been. He says, I don’t think Tim would have made a strong impression. As one of the things that we that Tim has grown a lot over time. And, and I think Tim and Kathy, both were not exactly the most social kind of social elite out there. But that part of ministry was was a way that they definitely grew. They grew together, they grew individually, and grew to be prepared for the ministry that they would they would go on to do together.

Jim Davis
Well, that’s another area. I feel like you give us a real picture of Tim Keller’s. I think in one place you referred to him at, I guess it was at Gordon Conwell as a little more of a wallflower. A little less likely to walk into a room and take it over. And so we have that Tim Keller, we have the hope Well, Tim Keller, the New York City, Tim Keller, the Gospel coalition, Tim Keller, all the same Tim Keller in very different settings. You look at all that Tim has all the ways of the Lord has used him be the best way to say it. What do you think Tim’s lasting legacy or 100 years from now will be?

Collin Hansen
It’s a great question, Jim. So I think you go two directions on that. Most of the time when, when the Lord continues to perpetuate the legacy of one of his servants, it seems to be through their writing. Now we’re in a whole new ballgame with the Internet. So who knows with with sermons that you can watch and listen to so easily. But usually, it’s through the writings the books endure. And I mean, these are these are books that managed to be both timely, but also with timeless truth. There’s a there’s a real real try perspectival dynamic to Tim’s writing the situational for that cultural moment at the normative of its of its biblical and theological treatments, as well as the the existential which is really the ability he has to preach to the heart. There’s a lot of counseling influenced David powlison, CCF on on Tim as well. So I think, I think for those reasons, the books though they are written for a moment, at the same time really have a long lasting effect and they continue to sell well. Even now in some cases, like what the reason for God about 14 years after publication, but I would say there is another dynamic here and This will be harder to know how it plays out. But I mentioned in there that someday when the New York Times does an obituary of Tim, the lead is going to be about his work of engaging evangelicalism in global cities. There’s just no doubt in my mind that that is the singular difference that he’s made, which is most evident in Manhattan. When he starts Redeemer Presbyterian church, I was able to identify, I think, for other Evan Jellicle congregations in that city that in the 19th century had been the Protestant and evangelical capital of the United States. Still activity in the boroughs, of course, but I’m talking to them about Manhattan. And at least four that people knew about and talked about. So just to see that transformation in New York City, but then through city to city. And then through his books, you mentioned there the translations that have been just voluminous in so many different languages. Yeah, I mean, that’s the I think that’s the legacy ultimately, now maybe there could be reversals on that. But, but if you’re visiting a global city, and find a church that is both familiar, but also contextual, then you probably as you’re thanking God, thank him for for Tim Keller. It’s I’m not saying that he’s the only person who was involved in that the whole point of the book is talking and honoring people like Terry Geiger and his help in founding city to city and, and talking about Harvey Kahn, and that vision of urban theology. But Tim has definitely been the catalyst used by God for that. And I think that’s most likely to be the long term legacy.

Jim Davis
Well, I think you’re right, and you would know better than most one of the things that stuck out to me by the end, it was just really neat to see Redeemer and TGC come about and how all the influence is played out. And, and Tim, in his humility would say, Oh, well, I mean, that’s not new. That’s so and so. And I got that from so and so. And I got that from so and so. And you do a good job of showing Well, yeah, but when you brought the best of all these people together, it became something new.

Collin Hansen
That’s right. I mean, that that I think is the ultimate takeaway, Jim of the book, is that many of us have been a little bit distracted from Tim’s influence, because he is so quick to credit people. And I go back, Jim to a lovely scene. And this is once again, thanks to Louise Midwood. And she described how at Gordon Conwell, they take classes together, and the students would all sit in the lectures, and then they would go back together to Tim’s dorm room on campus. And he would redo the lecture. Yeah, in a way that was somehow faithful to the professor’s intent. But somehow, with a twist that made it even more insight. Yeah, remember that I just found that to be the ultimate paradigm for Tim. Is No, it’s not original. If it were original, it wouldn’t be orthodox. But its original in a way that you hadn’t really thought about before. It’s original and fresh. And that freshness is a wave of the Spirit encouraging you challenging you convicting you. And and that’s I think, hopefully something Jim that you and I and and other other ministers Can, can emulate. Well,

Jim Davis
well said thank you for your work on this project. If everybody can preorder now. It comes out in February Am I correct? It’s right February so copy of it. Give it as a gift to somebody February 7. Colin, you know what we do here at the end? This is time for your final three. I didn’t feel like it would sound right if I called them my final three. Thank you, Colin, how do you find calm in the storm?

Collin Hansen
Oh, man, this is so it’s gonna be so shocking to listeners of this podcast. I reading. Reading not only because novels will transport me to different worlds immersive worlds. I just got done reading this. It feels shameful. I shouldn’t be admitting this. I just got done reading The Return of the King for the first time. I felt like I kind of had to polish these off before publishing the book on Tim as indebtedness to Tolkien but just the that’s where I find that calm is those immersive worlds there and then also the insight that was reading that book at the same time I was I was polishing off Matthew Rose’s philosophers of the radical right or the world a world after liberalism philosophers the radical right and it just gave me insight and the calm for me in the storm is the insight that God grants through books and just encouragement that he supplies through books so that’s where I find calming the storm.

Jim Davis
All right, well, where do you go to find good news today?

Collin Hansen
I am. I am blessed to be able to do this for through my job. In some ways, this is the job description I’ve written for myself. And it’s part of the tagline of gospel bound. We keep searching until we see God working, but I just I make it my vocation to find where God is doing, really encouraging things and shout out here to my close friend and longtime colleague and collaborator, Sarah zostera. Because it is Sarah’s persistent influence to always tell me, Colin, where’s the hope? Where’s the hope? Where’s the pivot to the hope there? And, and that’s just it’s a journalistic but also a spiritual exercise that she and I engage in vocationally. And it makes a huge difference. So I get to, I mean, the challenge, Jim, is that you know, this full Well, I have a front row seat to all the bad stuff. Yeah, but not just the bad stuff, to all the good stuff. So that’s, that’s, I mean, part of it’s just a survival mechanism, I have to be looking for the good stuff, because I know God is working. And because it’s easier for the bad stuff to show up on my desk. So I gotta keep looking. So that’s where I find good news today.

Jim Davis
All right, you may have already answered the last question. I don’t know, what’s the last great book that you’ve read?

Collin Hansen
I’m gonna I’m gonna go a little bit cliche here because people have already heard this from me, but I could go return to the king. I could go world after liberalism. I could go with what I’ve been telling people. I mean, I could go with previous gospel bound guests, Daniel Nari, I could go all the way back to what I’ve been telling other people, Hillary man tells the mirror in the light, the 2021 book that I read at the beginning of 2022. But it’s got to be Chris Watkins biblical critical theory. And it does, it connects to Tim here as well, because Tim wrote the foreword for that book. But what most people don’t know is that that book has been a persistent encouragement by Tim have Chris, over many years. And it’s emblematic. Chris is like a lot of us, Jim, around the same age, who have learned in some ways how to do this work of cultural analysis and engagement from Tim. But Chris has capacities and insights that the rest of us can learn from, and he’s taken the time to be able to do it. And for anybody who’s familiar with Tim’s work, it’s gonna be quite resonant. But they may not realize how much of that has both stemmed from what Chris has learned from Tim, but also has gotten his encouragement on. But then this is a beautiful thing about where we go from here. It’s not about going back and just and just kind of honoring the Tim Keller legacy. It’s about what Tim is continuing to do to train up the next generation to do this work of bringing the Bible to bear on contemporary questions at a deeper level than where we’ve been doing that. So let me just give you a quick example. I was writing for a forthcoming book about Don Carson, our co founder and president. And I found an old booklet on what is gospel centered ministry that Tim and Don wrote together. And they said, what we’re trying to do at TGC is this, use biblical theology to get people to Jesus, and from Jesus to apply his gospel to all of life. And I thought, wow, that’s really cool. I think that’s what we’ve been trying to do all along. But it’s definitely the epitome of what Chris watkyn does in that book. In fact, I’ve never seen somebody do those two things better in one volume. So that’s definitely the the last great book I’ve read.

Jim Davis
Well, thanks, Colin, thanks, really, for this project for all that you do for us to the gospel coalition and other places. And thank you to the listeners for joining us for this special edition of gospel bound. You can like subscribe, ring the bell or share this episode with a friend if you found it helpful. Blessings