Good morning, my friends. May grace and peace be with you today.

(Yesterday on the blog: The Stranger in Smokeland)
5 Reasons to Read Your Bible Beyond Practical Application
“Treat personal application as the only consistent outcome for your Bible reading, and you may simply miss out on these other benefits the Lord wishes for you.” Here are some good reasons, beyond practical application, to be committed to reading your Bible.
What Fills the Earth
What fills the earth? It’s a good and valid question with a number of answers.
Getty Music Sing! Conference Today
The Getty Music Sing! Conference begins this afternoon and is available via livestream. Today’s speakers include Alistair Begg and H.B. Charles. There is also an interview with Voddie Baucham, a talk from Dane Ortlund and, of course, lots of music with the Gettys, Shane & Shane, and others. It will be quite a day! You’ll need a Viewing Pass to watch the livestream. (Sponsored)
Transcript of Todd Beamer on Flight 93
Denny Burk shares the transcript of Todd Beamer on Flight 93. It gets me every time, especially because of his steadfast faith. “Todd Beamer was and evangelical Christian and one of the heroes of Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. His last conversation with a telephone operator named Lisa bears witness to great courage and grace. He left behind a pregnant wife and two children. Read every bit of this, and remember.”
The Overcommitment Cycle
“Overcommitment is a perennial problem for me. And I’m betting it is for you too.” Reagan Rose discusses a very common problem.
Kindness
On the one hand this is obvious, but on the other, we need to be continually reminded. “If we want a kinder world, we can’t wait for everyone else to make the first move.”
Serve Outside the Spotlight
“The antidote to hypocrisy is humility. What good deeds do you do that are seen by few or none? When did you last volunteer for a menial task?” This one is geared primarily toward pastors, but will apply to others as well.
Flashback: 3 Types of Fool
Os Guinness portrays three types of fools in the Bible: The Fool Proper, The Fool Bearer, and The Fool Maker. I found it a fascinating discussion.

No sorrow is too great to endure if it reveals to us some new beauty in Christ, or brings out in us some new feature of Christ-likeness. —J.R. Miller

I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this book as much as I did. I enjoy reading a good biography as much as anyone, but was perhaps a bit skeptical about a book that, instead of focusing on an individual’s life and accomplishments, instead describes his spiritual and intellectual formation. Yet what could have been a mite dry was actually very compelling.

It may be helpful context to state that I do not know Tim Keller personally and have neither met him nor corresponded with him. I also don’t think I’ve heard him preach more than once or twice. My exposure to him is really only through the three or four of his books that I have read. While I know a good number of people who consider him a major influence on their faith or ministry, I am not among them. I say all that because it means that I was reading about someone who is mostly a stranger, though one I’ve sometimes admired from afar and sometimes had concerns about.
Collin Hansen knows Keller well and came to know him far better in preparing this book. He shares the book’s purpose in the opening pages.

Unlike a traditional biography, this book tells Keller’s story from the perspective of his influences, more than his influence. Spend any time around Keller and you’ll learn that he doesn’t enjoy talking about himself. But he does enjoy talking—about what he’s reading, what he’s learning, what he’s seeing.
The story of Tim Keller is the story of his spiritual and intellectual influences—from the woman who taught him how to read the Bible, to the professor who taught him to preach Jesus from every text, to the sociologist who taught him to see beneath society’s surface. … This is the story of the people, the books, the lectures, and ultimately the God who formed Timothy James Keller.

And so it begins with his childhood and a father who was quite withdrawn and a mother who, though she loved her children, was extremely controlling. She led her family to an Evangelical Congregational church which “emphasized human effort in maintaining salvation and achieving sinless perfection. Both at home and in church, Tim Keller learned this second form of legalism—that of the fundamentalist variety. By the time Tim was leaving home to attend college, he didn’t just know about Martin Luther; he could personally relate to Luther, who had been afflicted with a pathologically overscrupulous conscience that expected perfection from himself in seeking to live up to his standards and potential.”
Keller enrolled as a religion major in Bucknell University where he fell under the influence of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and soon professed faith in Christ. His connection with InterVarsity would develop within him a zeal for evangelism and a method for reading and understanding Scripture. In this timeframe he would also be exposed to the ministries of John Stott, Elisabeth Elliot, Martyn Lloyd-Jones and others, all of whom would shape him in different ways. Even more importantly, he would come to know Kathy Kristy who would not only become his wife, but also his most formative intellectual and spiritual influence, for when “you’re writing about Tim Keller, you’re really writing about Tim and Kathy, a marriage between intellectual equals who met in seminary over shared commitment to ministry and love for literature, along with serious devotion to theology.”
The book goes on to tell of the influence of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, of R.C. Sproul and his Ligonier Valley Study Center, and of Francis Schaeffer and L’Abri. It tells of Keller’s time at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and the professors there, and his discovery of the writings of Jonathan Edwards. Then it advances to his first pastorate in Hopewell, Virginia and to his time as a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary, pausing to tell, at length, of the impact of Edmund Clowney. And, then, finally it comes New York City, Redeemer Church, Redeemer City-to-City, and Keller’s many books, along with the people living and dead who played essential roles in helping him develop his strategy for reaching cities for Christ.
Throughout the book, Hansen shows Keller as a man whose foremost gifting is not as an original thinker but as an analyzer and synthesizer who reads deeply and widely, pulling together insights from a host of others. “Having one hero would be derivative; having one hundred heroes means you’ve drunk deeply by scouring the world for the purest wells. This God-given ability to integrate disparate sources and then share insights with others has been observed by just about anyone who has known Keller, going back to his college days. He’s the guide to the gurus. You get their best conclusions, with Keller’s unique twist.” And hence the great conclusion at the end of it all is that if you appreciate Tim Keller the best thing you can do is focus less on him and more on the people who taught and influenced him.
After I finished the book I surveyed its endorsements and thought Sinclair Ferguson’s was especially on-point: “Here is the story of a man possessed of unusual native gifts of analysis and synthesis, of the home and family life that has shaped him, of people both long dead and contemporary whose insights he has taken hold of in the interests of communicating the gospel, and also of the twists and turns of God’s providence in his life. These pages may well have been titled Becoming Tim Keller. That ‘becoming’ has been neither a quick nor an easy road. But Collin Hansen’s account of it will be as challenging to readers as it is instructive.”
Ferguson says it just right. Whether you have been influenced by Keller or not, whether you admire him or not, I believe you will enjoy this account of his life framed around his intellectual and spiritual development. Told through the pen of an especially talented a writer, it is a fascinating and compelling narrative. It may just get you thinking about who has formed you and compel you to praise God for the people, the preachers, the books, and the organizations that have made you who you are.
Buy from Amazon

This week’s Free Stuff Friday is sponsored by Radius International.  They are giving away a conference package that includes: 2 tickets, a Radius pullover, and 4 books.

The winner will receive two free tickets to The Radius Conference being held June 28-29, 2023, at Grace Community Church, Sun Valley, CA. This event will be live in person or available as a live stream. John MacArthur, Costi Hinn, Ian Hamilton, Wayne Chen, Brooks Buser, Chad Vegas, and others from the Radius world will be live and in-person to teach on the Great Commission in today’s world.
The winner will receive a Radius International branded pullover. Size and gender option to be selected by the winner from available stock.
The winners will also receive four books that Radius International highly recommends:

No Shortcut to Success
A Manifesto for Modern Missions
By Matt Rhodes
Avoid “Get-Rich-Quick” Missions Strategies and Invest in Effective, Long-Term Ministry
Trendy new missions strategies are a dime a dozen, promising missionaries monumental results in record time. These strategies report explosive movements of people turning to Christ, but their claims are often dubious and they do little to ensure the health of believers or churches that remain. How can churches and missionaries address the urgent need to reach unreached people without falling for quick fixes?
In No Shortcut to Success, author and missionary Matt Rhodes implores Christians to stop chasing silver-bullet strategies and short-term missions, and instead embrace theologically robust and historically demonstrated methods of evangelism and discipleship—the same ones used by historic figures such as William Carey and Adoniram Judson. These great missionaries didn’t rush evangelism; they spent time studying Scripture, mastering foreign languages, and building long-term relationships. Rhodes explains that modern missionaries’ emphasis on minimal training and quick conversions can result in slipshod evangelism that harms the communities they intend to help. He also warns against underestimating the value of individual skill and effort—under the guise of “getting out of the Lord’s way”—and empowers Christians with practical, biblical steps to proactively engage unreached groups.

Missions By The Book
How Theology and Missions Walk Together
by Chad Vegas and Alex Kocman
Across the church, there is a rift between theology and missions. Bad theology produces bad missions, and bad missions fuels bad theology.
We wrongly think that we must choose between making a global impact and thinking deeply about the things of God. But the relationship between theology and missions is symbiotic—one cannot exist without the other. They walk hand-in-hand.

What Is the Mission of the Church?
Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission
by Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert
Christians today define mission more broadly and variably than ever before. Are we, as the body of Christ, headed in the same direction or are we on divergent missions?
Some argue that the mission of the Church is to confront injustice and alleviate suffering, doing more to express God’s love for the world. Others are concerned that the church is in danger of losing its God-centeredness and thereby emphasize the proclamation of the gospel. It appears as though misunderstanding of mission persists.
Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert believe there is a lot that evangelicals can agree on if only we employ the right categories and build our theology of mission from the same biblical building blocks. Explaining key concepts like kingdom, gospel, and social justice, DeYoung and Gilbert help us to get on the same page―united by a common cause―and launch us forward into the true mission of the church.

John G Paton
Autobiography of the Pioneer Missionary to the New Hebrides
by John G. Paton
The autobiography of John G. Paton contains everything necessary to make it a missionary classic. Born into a Christian family near Dumfries in 1824, Paton’s early years were marked by a struggle against poverty. He was self-educated, and the training ground for his life’s work was the slums of Glasgow where he laboured with success as a city missionary. With ‘the wail of the perishing heathen in the South Seas’ continually sounding in his ears, he prepared himself to serve overseas and was ordained as a missionary to the New Hebrides in 1858. This gorup of thirty mountainous islands, so named by Captain Cook, with its unhealthy climate, was then inhabited by savages and cannibals. The first attempt to introduce Christianity to them resulted in John Williams and James Harris being clubbed to death of his wife and child within months of their arrival. Against the savagery and the superstition, despite the trials and the tragedies, Paton persevered and witnessed the triumph of the gospel in two of these South Sea islands. His life is almost without parallel in missionary annals and his account of it is moving and gripping.
TO ENTER
Giveaway Rules: You may enter one time.  The winner will be notified by email. The giveaway closes on Sunday, March 26th, 2023 at midnight.