Some in Christendom resented Keller’s stumbled-upon celebrity. Others hailed him as the C.S. Lewis for a new generation. As for Keller, he stayed focused—there was a gospel to preach, cities to reach, souls to save. Even when he was diagnosed with cancer in June, 2020, he scarcely slowed, continuing to work, write, lead, and think—even amidst the chemo, right to the very end.

Long before he planted Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, taking New York City by storm; before City to City galvanized an international urban church planting movement, starting nearly 978 churches and training thousands of Christian leaders; before his endlessly churning mind birthed some two dozen books, many of which are already hailed as Christian classics; Tim Keller was just a kid in Pennsylvania, growing up and grappling with God and reason and himself with all the strength his head and heart could muster.
Born in Allentown in 1950, Keller became a Christian through Intervarsity Christian Fellowship while a sophomore at Bucknell University. He was bookish, even then, nose down in the works of John Stott, F.F. Bruce, A.W. Tozer, and C.S Lewis (to whom he would later be compared). He inhaled words like air (the better written and more sharply reasoned the better), swam in seas of ideas, and wrestled with both the intellectual plausibility and the emotional heart of the Christian faith. By the time he graduated, his path was set: Tim Keller would be a minister of the gospel.
He attended seminary at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary right after college, earning his M.Div in 1975. There, he met his beloved wife, Kathy, and plunged even deeper into the questions of the faith, engaging with Reformed doctrine and learning in the era of Meredith Cline, David Wells, Jack Davis, and J. Christy Wilson Jr.
“1970s Gordon-Conwell [was] a distinct theological phenomenon, and if you don’t understand that then you really don’t understand Tim Keller,” said Reformed Theological Seminary Chancellor Ligon Duncan. “Gordon-Conwell had a ton of confessional Calvinists there in the mid ‘70s, [and] Tim exudes the kind of intelligent, apologetic, reformed evangelical Christianity that was being fostered.”
M.Div in hand, the 24-year-old Keller signed on to pastor West Hopewell Presbyterian Church in Hopewell, Virginia. He served that congregation for the next nine years, slinging sermons like hotcakes (three per week, more often than not), pastoring congregants, and serving his local community. Along the way, Keller found time to earn his D.Min from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1981, and serve as director of church planting for the PCA’s mid-Atlantic region.
In the 1980s, Tim and Kathy Keller moved to Philadelphia, where the couple did urban ministry together. There, Keller taught leadership and communication at Westminster, served as Director of Mercy Ministries for the PCA, and authored his first two books—both related to mercy ministry. By 1989, the Kellers had moved yet again, this time to New York City to plant Redeemer Presbyterian Church. The Big Apple was more dangerous back then, a gritty mission field beset by crime, money, and skeptics. And though most of the other boroughs were chalk-full of churches planted by Christian immigrants from Africa, Latin America, and Asia, Manhattan was overwhelmingly dominated by secularism, with less than 1% of the population identifying as evangelical Christians.
Redeemer started small—with only around 50 members at first. But under Keller’s leadership, the little church began to grow. By the dawn of the new millennium, nearly 3,000 people attended Redeemer’s Sunday service. After the September 11 terror attacks, some 5,400 reeling Manhattanites poured through the church’s doors, searching for meaning, comfort, and hope. Trauma and tragedy fueled a growth spurt, and numbers of new converts soared.
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The ministry of the Word and prayer. In the busyness of pastoral life these two tasks can fall off the radar. In the rush to professionalise the ministry and ensure that we are great leaders who maintain focus, build churches, streamline processes, create memorable online content, and structure teams, we will often neglect the primary focus: The ministry of the Word and prayer.

The Sins of Commission
It’s hard not to go online in any Christian setting these days and not see a litany of sins that pastors commit.
In fact there is a whole industry built around these matters, which often expose every sordid detail of sexual sin, or financial sin or other type of relational sin.
And some of it is pretty grubby. And most of it is disqualifying.  It’s not hard to find it. And it’s not hard to find commentary about it. These sins of “commission” are up front and lamented. They anger and hurt many people.
And I’ve also written around these matters, especially in the more grey areas of abusive leaders – the “rough sheep” spoken about in Ezekiel 34, which I also believe to be disqualifying of pastors.  There are plenty of temptations out there that we can succumb to.
But it struck me reading my Bible this morning of another set of sins, this time not of “commission” – the stuff that is being done that should not be done -, but of “omission” – the stuff that ought to be done that is not being done. And there are two sins of omission that are are just as tempting.
Now at this point many a pastor is rolling their eyes and sighing “Tell me about it!’  The work of pastoring churches is complex and the tasks never seem to be finished. There are lots of sins of omission sitting in your Macbook’s in-tray.
And if you are of certain personality types, then your own frailties and psychology (and sometimes laziness) will ensure that some tasks that ought to get done don’t.
And also, what you don’t need at this time is probably a church member telling you what you should be doing that you are not. If anything kills the will to live – or at least kills the will to serve in church – it’s church members who are hypercritical of their pastors.
Ok, sure keep your pastor to account as a congregation. But make sure that you are not calling them to a level of busyness or task-oriented work that you don’t commit to yourself.  The fact is one of the pastor’s primary roles is to keep you to account!
The Sins of Omission
So, what are these sins of omission that we can be tempted into?  What’s the stuff pastors need to do that they might be drawn away from on a regular basis, or at least to push to the side and allow to wither through neglect?
Well, as I said, in my Bible readings this morning, I read 1 Samuel 12, the farewell address of the prophet Samuel to the people of Israel after they have chosen a king.
And after recounting Israel’s history (a common feature of farewell addresses in the Old Testament), he calls on the LORD to call out the wickedness of the nation for asking for a king when they already have one in the LORD.
But then, when the people are sufficiently sorrowful for their asking of a king, he assures them that if they follow the LORD all will be right with them.  And then he says this:
Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and right way. (1 Samuel 12:23).
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We see Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah standing the test of time. They are wise and godly. When they needed to stand in the face of temptation, they stood while everyone else bowed. Together they kept the faith, even in the middle of Babylon.

Folly is a joy to him who lacks sense,    but a man of understanding walks straight ahead.Without counsel plans fail,    but with many counselors they succeed.(Proverbs 15:21-22)
Throughout the Proverbs, the author urges us to seek wisdom. We could even say that repeatedly wisdom “calls out” to us so that we might gain knowledge and understanding (Prov. 1:20-22).
Why do we need wisdom? Why do we need knowledge and understanding? The answer is simple: so that we might live to the glory of God. Therefore, the Proverbs speak about several practical aspects of our daily lives. They talk about the incentives of living wisely concerning wealth, power, and social status. However, at the same time, they teach us about wisdom concerning more intimate matters like familial and friendly relationships. I want to focus on this idea of friendships, especially regarding pastors and ministry leaders.
Often the temptation for ministers is to be stubbornly individualistic. We are good at keeping our heads down and our hands on the plow. We are, probably more than we like to admit, wading through rough and rugged waters while thinking, “I will do this on my own, and I will do it my way.” Besides, wasn’t this how the Apostle Paul “did” ministry? No, it was not how the Apostle planted churches, evangelized, preached powerful sermons, and the like. Paul wisely surrounded himself with godly friends. One New Testament scholar has pointed out that Paul identifies more than 65 people as friends in ministry or members throughout his letters. This can be seen in the closing remarks of his letters, as he repeatedly makes mention of men and women with whom he enjoyed gospel partnership and deeply committed friendship.
If you reread the above proverb, you will notice that it bluntly states that those who seek to go their own way, the stubborn individualistic minister, is one who “lacks sense.” However, the one who surrounds himself, like Paul, with godly counselors has understanding, walks intentionally forward, and finds success.
Why is it considered wise to have godly friends as a host of counselors in ministry? Here are three reasons:
They stand as an encouragement against temptation and sin.
Evangelical authors have spilled much ink regarding the hardships of ministry; therefore, I do not feel the need to spend much time convincing you of that truth. Nevertheless, with trials and tribulations comes overbearing temptation. Our great enemy, Satan, knows it is the opportune time to attack when we are at our lowest points. Therefore, he moves swiftly and convincingly, attempting to bring shame and despair into the minister’s life.
I think about Christ as the Spirit drives him into the wilderness. There he spends forty days and forty nights fasting and praying. Matthew 4:2 says that Jesus was “hungry.” What an understatement! Jesus was physically exhausted, and in his flesh, he was low. It was then, in this moment of weakness, that the tempter came to him.
That is the scene that I am painting for the minister, too. When we are at our lowest point, the spiritual battle rages. We must, like Christ, always be ready. However, if we are honest with ourselves, we often do not look to Christ when Satan tempts us to despair and tells us of the guilt within. Instead, we find ourselves looking to our circumstances; we look for instant gratification. In the low points of our ministry, we long to feel acceptance, success, and affection. Therefore, when temptation comes, we are often weak.
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