Engaging Tim Keller on the Church's Mission

Once again, conversations that matter podcast,

I'm your host John Harris to go over another chapter in the book, engaging with Keller. We're going to jump right into it.

This is something that for those who listen to the podcast, you will likely be familiar with and I'm going to give you my argument for why you should keep listening, why this is still important.

And not only is it a review, because you know, we've talked about this before, social justice and Tim Keller. In fact, there's a documentary, some people call it that it's more of a short piece that I did on Tim Keller on this point called,

What Happened to Tim Keller? You can find it on the YouTube channel. And you know, you've heard this, but I think the key thing that the author of this section we're going over on the church's mission, and that's more the focus.

It's not just social justice, it's the church's mission. Name is Peter Naylor, who's the author here. His focus is more on how

Tim Keller brings about somewhat of a mission drift. So we are familiar with the fact that Tim Keller, he says crazy things sometimes that, you know, if you have white skin, it means you have the advantage of having a million dollars.

He said stuff like that on stage. We critique that stuff. He obviously believes in redistribution of wealth at some level or thinks that that's a feature that Christians can get behind or should get behind.

And we've talked about that. We'll talk about it again today. But the key thing Naylor zones in on that I haven't focused as much on, but I think

I've mentioned it, is that there's a mission drift element here that Tim Keller adds to the mission of the church or reconfigures the mission of church of the church in a way that makes it more, guess what?

No surprises here. If you've been listening to our series on Keller, more palatable, it's more palatable to those in New York City where he ministers to those now,

I think broadly speaking across the United States who are more secular and they look at the church and they don't see much of a use for the church.

There's not really anything to justify its existence. But hey, if they are into social action, if they're community activists or organizers, if they're not just feeding the poor, but rectifying racial disparities and doing things that the community can look at and say, well, that's a good thing for our community, then maybe just maybe we can justify the church's existence.

We can avoid the cancel culture. They'll give us a pass when it comes to the things that are out of step with secular, the secular world.

And I think that's the attractional thing. I think that's why people adopt this, to be honest with you. So we're going to go over it.

It's as you can see, we're actually we're making our way through this book. We're over half done here. And and this is by the end of this chapter,

I think we'll be like close to three quarters of the way through. So sadly, our time on Tim Keller will come to an end at some point.

For some of you, I'll be happy about it because I don't it's not that I dislike looking into this, but it is it is hard to have your mind in error so much.

And looking up Keller's beliefs, there's just a lot of error here. And it's sneaky error, though. And that's why we have to talk about it, because so many people, even pastors who've been through seminary, should know how to study the

Bible will miss this stuff. It's amazing to me, really, that they miss it to some extent.

And I'm not trying to judge anyone in particular here. I'm just saying broadly speaking, how come, you know, this book, how come this book is out of print?

How come hardly anyone knows about it or even at the time? I don't think it was that popular. And even the book is pretty tame as far as the conclusions they draw.

They like I said in the beginning, the editors are trying to make out like, well, Tim Keller's not a heretic. He's just trying to communicate orthodoxy differently.

And then you read the book and you're like, I don't think so. I don't think so. And and a lot of the views in here are fairly unique.

You're just not going to find these critiques. And so that's why I want to make it more available to you. It's important, especially for a church where you have pastors and leaders who really like Tim Keller and are implementing

Tim Keller. And you're maybe concerned about it, but you don't know what to say. You don't know where the citations are.

Well, that's why we're doing this. And if you are a patron, you get access to the whole slideshow.

You get all the citations in print form. And so you can go check that out. Link is in the info section.

Well, let's get into it. I'm going to play some clips from Tim Keller later on. But let's start with some.

Some quotes from the book, we're going to start here, engaging

Keller on the church's mission, this is a statement that Tim Keller signed. Ed Stetzer signed it, others signed it as well.

And it's called the Mission Manifesto, the Mission Manifesto. I think it was there in 2011 or so, somewhere around that time.

It was over a decade ago this was created. And Ed Stetzer, I think, was the big name behind it.

But Tim Keller signed it. And it says this, we believe the mission and responsibility of the church includes both the proclamation of the gospel and its demonstration.

The church must constantly evangelize, respond lovingly to human needs, as well as seek the welfare of the city.

It's just an excerpt from it. And boy, that doesn't sound that that sounds good, right? Doesn't that sound great? Seeking the welfare of the city, meeting humans needs, but also evangelizing.

So a spiritual component, a physical component. And we exist also for the benefit of the city that we're in.

That should be a good thing Christians can rally around, right? It sounds so good. And the rest of this particular episode is going to be unpacking this view.

And really, I think, not just causing you to question it, refuting it, because there's a big problem with this.

And the problem isn't that we're against meeting human needs. That's not the problem. The problem is how we go about doing such a thing and what vehicle is used to accomplish that end.

And to what extent it's even possible, to be honest. So I need to make clear from the beginning, the issue here is not that there are, there's a group of people against meeting felt needs or real needs.

There's that's not the issue. I'm for meeting needs. I give to charity. I help people where I can, right?

Hopefully the people in this audience, you're doing your part as well, where you can in the station that God has put you in.

That's not the issue, right? The issue is, is something else. The issue is, is the church, the vehicle for meeting these needs that a city might have is the way that the church, how does the church seek the welfare of the city?

Is it in meeting these physical needs? Is there an obligation that the church has so much so that it's actually part of the mission on the same level as the gospel?

That's the issue. And this is where mission drift comes in. And churches that go down this road, I just, in my observation, they have to go one direction or another.

It might seem at first like, Hey, we're going to start a, a new ministry at our church.

And it's the purpose of it is to help me the needs of the community.

Now there may be a place for this. So I'm, I'm open to some extent, but if you put it on the church as an obligation that we need to do this, we must do this as a biblical thing to do.

Jesus has commanded this, you know, cause I'm just thinking in my head, you know, I could see maybe a situation where there's a soup kitchen type scenario in which it's the opportunity to preach the gospel.

People are coming in to get these, these needs met, but you're doing it as a way to, to preach the gospel, to evangelize.

So, and it's part of that. And people know that, but when, when the drift happens, I think when you start saying that the purpose is, is feeding people and it's on for the church, that's the mission of the church, and that's on an equal plane with preaching the gospel.

And over the years, as you go down that path, the churches that do end up, the percentage increases as to what amount of effort and priority meeting these physical needs is and getting involved in community organizations and activism.

And the gospel gets lost. And I think it's inevitable. I think one mission eats up the other and you can't have both.

That's just my, that's my opinion. That's not the other didn't say this. I think the author would agree. Uh, so let's unpack it more though.

And I'll give you some quotes from Tim Keller on this, from his book, generous justice, he says this in our world, this could mean prosecuting the men who batter, exploit and rob poor women.

This is part of their church's mission. Okay. But it could also mean Christians respectfully putting pressure on a local police department until they respond to calls and crimes as quickly in the poor part of town, as in the prosperous part.

Another example would be to form an organization that both prosecutes and seeks against loan companies that prey on the poor and the elderly with dishonest and exploitive practices.

Job also gives us many examples of what we call primary justice or righteous living. He says that he is eyes to the blind and feet to the lame and a father to the to be a father meant to be cared for the needs of the poor as a parent would meet the needs of his children in our world.

This means taking the time personally to meet the needs of the handicapped, the elderly, or the hungry in our neighborhoods.

Or it could mean the establishment of new nonprofits to serve the interests of these classes of persons, but it could also mean a group of families from more prosperous side of town, adopting the public school in a poor community and making generous donations of money and pro bono work in order to improve the quality of education.

So you see here that Tim Keller in the beginning of his book is trying to make a case that the church's mission is twofold.

And one of these, these, um, priorities is doing of justice.

And this is, these are part of what that might look like. This is, these are examples of it that I've just read.

Now, obviously some of these things, a church can't really do some of this, right? Um, so, so there's a big question,

I think, right off the bat about what should individuals do and then what should the church do or what should governments do?

And what should the church do? All these things are conflated and just, it's, it's murky and these things must be separated in order to understand very clearly what the church's mission is, because the way the book presented is this is on the church to do these things.

This is, like I said, on equal par with preaching the gospel. He also says this common relief ministries are temporary shelters for the homeless and refugees, food and clothing services for people in need and free or low cost medical and counseling services.

Relief also means caring for foster children, the elderly and the physically handicapped through home care or the establishment of institutions.

A more assertive form of relief is advocacy in which people in need are given active assistance to find legal aid, housing, and other kinds of help, such as protection from various forms of domestic abuse and violence, dependency.

It includes education, job creation and training, job search skills and financial counseling, as well as helping a family into home ownership.

Now, this sounds a lot like, this is at the end of the book, I think more or in the middle towards the end.

And this is very similar to what Eric Mason argues in Woke Church. In fact, his church has a think tank at the church that its sole purpose is to figure out remedies for disparities in the society.

And education is part of it and job placement and helping single mothers and just all these things, racial justice, all this stuff becomes the responsibility of the church and the church has an obligation to it.

I think generous justice dovetails quite nicely with Woke Church. And maybe the difference would be, and I'm going to give

Keller a little benefit of the doubt here because Keller, I don't know that Keller goes as far as Mason, where Mason makes out like, this is the gospel, this doing these things is part of the gospel, we can learn from secular groups that are doing these things, how to better do gospel work somehow.

And Keller, I think to his credit, and maybe he's been sloppy in other places, but at least in this book, from what

I can tell, he is able to make the distinction and not conflate it with the gospel.

Instead though, he elevates it to the same level as gospel proclamation. So a little bit of a different error, but it's the same family of categorical mistakes and it gets you basically to the same place in the end.

He says this as well. He says, we have considered what it takes to help an individual or a family, but what does it take to help entire neighborhoods, to self -sufficiency?

Most of the best answers to that question began with a look at the life and work of John Perkins. Perkins, born in 1930, founded ministries.

His work had included a dizzying variety of programs, including daycare, farm co -ops, health centers, adult education centers, low -income housing developments, tutoring, job training, youth internships, scholarship programs, as well as very vigorous evangelism and church planting.

Now you got to listen to this very carefully, okay? We've talked about John Perkins before in my book,

Christian, or sorry, it's the first one about social justice. Social justice goes to church. I have a whole bio of John Perkins.

And my conclusion is John Perkins is actually a false teacher. I don't know how you really escape that because Perkins does do the conflation that Eric Mason does, that this is the gospel.

This is part or part of the gospel. And if you don't engage in these things, then you're missing the gospel somehow.

And what Perkins does is, what Tim Keller's not also telling you about is Perkins made voter drives part of his initiative as well.

It was very politically active. And so he uses Perkins here and guess what he says?

He says, look, Perkins founded these ministries. These are ministry. What I just read to you, ministries, variety of ministries.

I mean, look, low -income housing development, tutoring, job training, youth, all this is, these are ministries, ministries, ministry, using spiritual gifts for the building of the body of Christ, and he says as well, as well as vigorous evangelism and church planning.

So here's, this is what gives it away. That this is a reorientation of the mission of the church is because he's calling these things.

These are ministries and it's, it's accompanying, it's part of the vigorous evangelism and church planning.

This is these, all these things go together and they're all important. They're all kind of on the same level and we should all do all of them. And the church has an obligation to all of these things.

And John Perkins is the model, nevermind that he had, he had issues theologically, but we should just do what he did.

John Perkins, by the way, also very into redistribution. He, he was the one that developed the three

R's. I think it was, if memory serves me, relocation, redistribution.

And I can't remember the third one now. Maybe it'll come to me later in the podcast.

But John Perkins also, I remember I was reading, what was this, a few years ago is

Crew, Crew in, I think it was LA, Los Angeles, Campus Crusade for Christ formerly, but now

Crew, they were using John Perkins' principles, the three R's and redistribution being one for their stuff, it just came to me that that was a connection.

But anyway, Keller likes John Perkins. A lot of people seem to like John Perkins. I see him referenced a lot.

Even John MacArthur, I think has referenced John Perkins in positive ways. He's one of these guys that, you know, he's probably a very nice guy.

That's the thing. It's probably very, there's probably a lot of like really positive things about John Perkins, but it doesn't mean that these are ministries of the church.

That's the issue, if you can see that. So one of the key issues with all of this, and we're going to get into a bunch of them, but the biggest one people usually bring up first is redistribution.

Keller teaches, this is according to Naylor, that the laws of Jubilee support the redistribution of wealth.

These are laws from the Old Testament where the land would go back to the families of the tribes who had that land.

Slaves, if they were Hebrew, would be freed. Their debts would be forgiven. All these kinds of things would happen in the 70th year.

And Keller teaches that the laws of Jubilee support the redistribution of wealth. So that's how we can justify this because look, wealth was redistributed at those times.

There was a transfer of land and stuff. And Jubilee laws though, according to Naylor, did the very opposite of what

Keller says they did. Far from relativizing a person's property, the law was designed to preserve it.

Redistribution of wealth is not found in the New Testament either. So what Naylor's saying is that, look, these laws were actually designed to prevent property from changing hands and keeping the land stable and in the same families, the same tribes, the same people groups.

That's a stability that you want. And so it was actually designed to prevent the redistribution of property or at the very least, it was to conserve the land and the whatever wealth might be there in the same families, in the same tribes.

So there was a sense of ownership, obligation, responsibility. Now they also say this, redistribution of wealth is not found in the

New Testament. Naylor says this as well. Ananias and Sapphira in the book of Acts did not sell their property and they did not have to do that and they did not have to bring the proceeds to the apostles.

In other words, there was not an obligation on them to do that. So this is even in the early church where people say, well, they had everything in common, that's what the church should do.

And Naylor's saying, wait, hold on a minute. This is that situation. And Ananias and Sapphira didn't have to do that because it said about them that, was it not yours when you had it?

So it was your private property. The problem was they lied about it. They lied to the Holy Spirit about how much they sold their land for.

It wasn't that they didn't give enough. Keller says, if you do not actively and generously share your resources with the poor, you are a robber.

That's a direct quote from him. Think about that. I'm going to read it again. If you do not actively and generously share your resources with the poor, you are a robber and you could might be a lot of things if you don't share, but a robber is not one of them, guys.

You're not going to find that in the Bible. The basic problem with this reasoning is the confusion of justice with generosity.

You may not be a generous person, but that doesn't make you a robber. And if he makes you a robber, that means you have an obligation to meet these needs that people say they have.

If that's an obligation upon you, think about this deeper.

Everyone is in a state of sin and judgment, right? God doesn't save everyone. If that's true, does that make

God a robber? Because there's a need there and he doesn't meet that need in the way. Well, you don't want to get in there, right?

You don't want to go there because that logic applied to God would make God out to be a bad person.

No, I mean, and God is a generous God and the

Trinity is generous. But the thing is that God does not have an obligation to save anyone.

The fact that he saves anyone should astound us. And of course, we know from Romans nine, the reason that some are not saved as they are vessels of wrath is so he can magnify his attributes.

And so there's even a higher good in those things. We might not understand all the outworkings of that, and that's okay.

But Keller's logic here would not be good if you applied it to God. So if you do not actively and generously share your resources with the poor, that doesn't make you a robber.

You know, it might make you, you might be greedy. There may be a symptom. That might be a symptom of something else going on. That's possible,

I suppose, but it might not even be anything. It might just be that, you know, you, you don't have the resources necessarily to share as, as much as others do.

I mean, you, uh, uh, you know, I, it's really people's business. What causes they get involved with them, what they do with it.

I think we should all be, uh, we should be helping the communities we live in and the people around us, a good

Samaritan being an example of that. But that's not the church's obligation. That is an obligation for, uh, those who are individual

Christians living their lives. Let's look at some of Keller's justifications, shall we? For his view.

The first is from Luke four. These are passages he quotes and the scroll of Isaiah, the prophet was handed to Jesus.

And he unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written is from Luke four quoting Isaiah 61. The spirit of the

Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to release the two captives, uh, proclaim release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind and set free those who are oppressed.

So the question here is what is Jesus talking about? Is this a spiritual blindness? Is this, this is about his first coming.

And is this, uh, meant to mean that Jesus is going to rectify all the disparities, cast off the

Roman yoke and, uh, stop the Roman enslavement of the Jews and, uh, make sure that John the Baptist doesn't get beheaded and make sure everyone's fed properly.

Is that what Jesus did? You can certainly see him exercising miracles and signs that point to his ministry and how

God truly was at work. And that, uh, these were signs of the new revelation he was giving.

You could point to these being maybe foreshadows of the millennial kingdom to come. Um, is this a normative verse though for the church's mission?

Is that, is this like the great commission? Is this what the church is supposed to be doing?

Or is this something that Jesus is saying is fulfilled in me? Right. In the context, I think you'd have to say it's the latter.

Uh, Isaiah 42, one through seven says this. Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom my soul delights.

I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry nor raise his voice nor make his voice heard in the street.

A bent reed he will not break off and a dimly burning wick. He will not extinguish. He will faithfully bring forth justice.

He will not be disheartened or crushed until he has established justice on the earth and the coastlands will wait expectantly for his law and it goes on.

And talks about all the good things that will happen. Let's see. I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness.

I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you. And I will point you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon.

And those who dwell in darkness from the prison, Isaiah chapter 42. So this is another justification

Keller uses that it's the mission of the church to get involved in the things we talked about previously, because Isaiah 42 talks about in it, my servant, so Jesus doing all these things.

And, and, and that this is the state of affairs. I think someone would say that this is reflective of what the millennial kingdom would look like.

And that that becomes the normative for the church to bring that state of affairs about. So I'm 33, five

Keller develops his case for the mission of the church and the church to seek social justice in the world. Based on these passages,

Keller believes that when justice is joined with righteousness, it means social justice. And so that's how you have in Psalm 33, five and other passages.

Keller saying things like the Lord loves social justice. That's literally a translation. That's not, that's just how

Keller translate these translates these verses, even though no other translation translates them, social justice

Keller. You have to ask yourself, why is he manipulating the verbiage here or the language?

Why is he doing that? And I think we know why it's too, again, the church is going to be more palatable if you're on the social justice, cutting edge as the church, man.

I mean, that's, that's hip and cool. And the world can't really say too many negative things about you, right? Cause you're doing the same things.

They're doing the same things that they're into. I think that that's, that's what makes this attractive at least.

Uh, and this is a very modern, modern term, and you gotta be careful with this kind of stuff, because if you impose modern definitions and terms onto the past, modern notions onto ancient literature, you wind up in all kinds of problems very easily.

Some would actually call that a fallacy to do that. Uh, so here's, uh, the problem with this.

If Isaiah 42, one through seven is about the mission of Jesus. It would be hard to avoid the conclusion that Jesus failed his mission.

Jesus kingdom is not of the world. And the kingdom of God is within you. John 1836 and Luke 1721 in his first coming,

Jesus didn't stop the beheading of John the Baptist. Jesus didn't cast off the Roman yoke.

There's a lot of things Jesus didn't do that. If that was Jesus's mission, that it seems like there's a deeper reality here.

There's something else going on. Is it spiritual blindness? Well, let's see what John Calvin has to say on Isaiah 42. He says this, he will exhibit judgment to the

Gentiles by the sword judgment. The prophet means a well -regulated government and not a sentence, which is pronounced by a judge on the bench for to judge means among the

Hebrew writers to command, to rule, to govern. And he adds that this judgment will not only be in Judea, but throughout the whole world.

This promise was exceedingly new and strange for it was only in Judea that God was known and the Gentiles were shut out from all confidence in his favor.

These clear proofs were therefore exceedingly needful for us that we might be certain of our calling for.

Otherwise we might think that these promises did not all belong to us. Christ was sent in order to bring the whole world under the authority of God and obedience to him.

And this shows that without him, everything is confused and disordered. Before he comes to us, there can be no proper government amongst us.

And therefore we must learn to submit to him if we desire to be well and justly governed. Now we ought to judge of this government from the nature of his kingdom, which is not external, but belongs to the inner man, for it consists of a good conscience and uprightness of life, not what is so reckoned before men, but what is so reckoned before God.

The doctrine may be summed up like this, because the whole life of men has been perverted since we were corrupted in every respect by the fall of Adam, Christ came with the heavenly power of his spirit that he might change our disposition and thus form us again to newness of life,

Romans 6 .4. This is John Calvin's commentary on what we just read in Isaiah 42, which is interesting to me because it's very out of step with what

Keller's trying to draw from Isaiah 42. And, you know, John Calvin here seems to,

I mean, the interpretation he gives to it is that Jesus, actually at Christmas time, this makes a great deal of sense,

Jesus is going to come with the perfect government and he's going to bring the whole world under the authority of God and obedience to him.

And we're looking forward to that, but human governments ultimately fail. And that's what Calvin is drawing from this.

And so it would be odd, I guess, if that's the true interpretation of this to then use the passage to say the church, not even government, right?

The church then can bring about this state of affairs and it's our responsibility to do so.

John Calvin seemed to say, no, that's not what's going on here. Keller's justification, again, this is another argument

Keller brings to bolster his claim of the church's mission being in part social justice. Keller states that Job illustrates what this kind of righteous or just person looks like.

And we already read this, right? That Job is someone who rectifies justice, takes up the case of the immigrant, and this is what we ought to do.

So that's why we should put pressure on a local police department or form an organization to prosecute loan sharks.

You know, church should do that stuff, I guess. Well, the problem is that Job was no mere private citizen, but a prince and a judge.

He sat in the gate, which was the place where the elders would try cases and deliver judgments, the equivalent of today's courts of justice.

He was like a king. Keller does the same thing with King David and King Lemuel and tries to make out like they have examples we should follow as Christians or as the church.

And the problem is it's a category conflation because they're kings, they're magistrates, they have authority.

And it's, they have authority to do certain things that the church has not been given authority to do. Here's another argument

Keller gives. Keller argues from the Old Testament laws concerning the needs of Levites, widows, orphans, and strangers, that the church should take direct action to alleviate poverty of the city.

And Keller, in so doing this, he widens the net and he puts other groups, like one of the things he does is he actually translates the term strangers to immigrants, which is not a correct translation.

The problem is that the New Testament teaching defines the church's responsibility to care for their members.

So if you're looking for the church's responsibility towards the poor, the obligation the church has is actually towards the people within the fold of the church, helping widows, 1

Timothy 5. In Acts 4, they're sharing with each other, but it's within the boundaries of the church.

In 3 John, it's giving a haven for those who are Christians of other places.

You have examples of people giving to Christians in other places, to churches in other places, but the teaching is about the church's responsibility to one another.

That's where the obligation at least comes in. The Old Testament strangers also were entering a covenant community, and you have to make sure you understand the historical context here.

This was not the same as people coming across our Southern border in the United States, which I think is probably what

Tim Keller wants to make you think. And that we have an obligation as the church today to people that come across the

Southern border in a special way, because the Old Testament strangers were also treated with equity before the law of God, which,

I mean, again, there's so many problems with this, actually. This isn't the only one, but the one that Nalor wants to focus on is the fact that the

Old Testament was a covenant community. It was, he says, it's basically like them coming and entering the church.

So you do have an obligation once they enter your church, but you don't, if they're just in your community.

So being part of the covenant community is very important. That's Nalor's interpretation. I think for me, I don't even know if I'd bring that up.

I, for me, the big thing would be that there's when someone comes in across the

Southern border, let's say, and they're a migrant and Christians, I think

I would, I would extend it out to say Christians do need to treat those people with equity before the law.

So if they're a legal migrant, that means before the law, they ought to be deported. And that doesn't mean it's our responsibility to do that, but to report such a thing,

I suppose, you know, depending on the situation we could at least do that.

But there's, we don't have an obligation to as a church to feed them or to give them things or to redistribute wealth in their direction, just because they have a need and they happen to be in our country now or something like that.

That doesn't mean other organizations can't do some of these things. It doesn't mean that you can't. Uh, I mean, I believe that there should be charities if the government's going to fail in this regard, which they're failing right now.

Um, I think it's better to have Christians form charities that would go and engage some of these people and, and hopefully convert them and inspire them to follow the law and go back and stop violating the laws of this country.

Uh, but in the process of getting there, uh, to without assisting them in their crime, and this is a hard, hard dicey thing to navigate, but to try to influence them in positive ways, because we know where they're going to go.

They're going to go to left -wing activist, um, organizations. They're going to tell them how to vote.

They're going to give them money that doesn't really belong to them. Redistributed from others.

Uh, it's a whole mess. I mean, I look, my family comes from California, from Los Angeles, which is the biggest sanctuary city in the country.

And I know how this works and it doesn't do good things. So Christians being involved to try to bring about a sense of responsibility,

I think is fine, but is it the church's job is the question? And no, it's not. And you're just not going to find it.

And you can't try to twist the way that people in a civil capacity were supposed to treat aliens and strangers in their land who, by the way, weren't the same as legal migrants.

Uh, if you want to say immigrants, I guess you can, but I think that would have included, um, the strangers, people who would have been perhaps even traveling through and so forth.

So it's not a one for one comparison, but you know, even if you want to say that they're the same thing, that there's a difference between the civil relationship and a, uh, ecclesiastical relationship.

All right. Uh, more, let's see. Uh, there's a, Keller makes a straw man. He does this actually quite a bit.

He does this on Twitter a lot. He says, many believe that the job of the church is not to do justice at all, but to preach the word and to evangelize and build up believers.

But if it is true that justice and mercy to the poor are the inevitable signs of justifying faith, it is hard to believe that the church is not to reflect this duty corporately in some way.

Now, the key part of this is he says, it is hard to believe that's his argument.

Guys, that's his argument is hard to believe that that's pretty subjective.

It's, uh, it doesn't really give you the rallying cry of it's equal to the gospel, right, to do this kind of thing.

Uh, and then who's he talking about? This is the straw man. Part of it. Many believe that the job of the church is not to do justice.

Who doesn't, but I believe the church's job is to do justice, but it's not social justice in the civil realm or in the social realm, uh, it's within the boundaries of the church to do justice.

That would be the responsibility of the church. Yes. Train people to honor the commandments of Christ, keep his commandments, honor him and, and, uh, make being disciples.

And that will include people in your church who are involved in the government and people who are going to steward their votes well, and people are going to be involved in charitable work.

That doesn't mean that's the church's direct responsibility though. And to say that, well, many believe that the job of the church is not to do justice.

I don't know who you're talking about. I don't know. I don't know one person who says that that's not the job of the church. It is the job of the church, but not within the, uh, not outside necessarily the boundaries of the church.

That's the only, that's the hiccup here. It becomes a muddled mess.

Kelly Keller says things like this in generous justice churches that against Kuyper Abraham Kuyper theologian who, uh, taught sphere sovereignty.

So you had the family, you had the church, you had the government, they had different responsibilities. So he says churches that against Kuyper's advice, try to take on all the levels of doing justice often find that the work of community renewal and social justice overwhelms the work of preaching, teaching, and nurturing the congregation.

Yeah. No kidding. That's kind of our critique and Keller seems to admit that. And I think that's a big admission.

So, so maybe, maybe just, maybe there is another realm in which this is supposed to be, uh, applied.

Maybe it's not within the boundaries of the church where that obligation exists. Maybe that obligation exists somewhere else.

And, and that's something that Kuyper, uh, Kuyper sphere sovereignty, I think can get us to Keller, uh, wants to play muddy on this and say, well, it is the church's obligation, but guess what, you know, we're going to have to share this obligation,

I guess, with these other realms as well, the family and the, and the government. So it reorientates the whole mission of all these various institutions to, uh, the doing justice.

They're all supposed to be about that. We know that the government is a ministry of justice. So what is that?

Why is that unique for the government to be that? And for these other institutions like the family and like the church to be different than that?

That's the question. That's what Keller muddies. He it's well, everyone's supposed to do justice. And what does that mean? Well, it could mean a lot of things.

Uh, he says this too, though, and it sounds, tell me if this sounds contradictory. This isn't his book center church, page 175.

He says faithful churches have evangelistic outreach as one of their goals, but also that they are looking for ways to strengthen health, the health of their neighborhoods, making them safer, more humane places to live.

He adds to that though, this is in the same book. I have argued in generous justice and elsewhere that while the mission of the gathered church is to proclaim the gospel of individual salvation, to win people to Christ and form disciples.

Yet the will of God for the church dispersed Christians living in the world is to minister in both word and deed and do evangelism and do justice.

So listen to this Keller says in center church that actually it's individual

Christians who are supposed to do justice. And it's the mission of the church to proclaim the gospel of individual salvation, win people to Christ and form disciples.

Okay. Well, that's, that's more of the correct, the correct, uh, uh, formula. But then in the same book, he says, faithful churches need to do evangelism and strengthen the health of their neighborhoods, making them safer, more humane, which is it, right?

Which is it? Is it, and this is, I've, I've pointed this out over and over with Tim Keller. We've pointed this out on the

Trinity and with his view on sin and hell so far that Tim Keller often has

Orthodox sounding language that the people in the Orthodox audience hear and think, oh, good, good.

He said it. And then the language that people who aren't Orthodox, who are more,

I mean, you're, you're PC USA person who likes the rainbow flag perhaps can get behind and say, oh yes, that's, that's what

Christianity should be. There's two contradictory things. Side by side. And Keller has dual theologies on most of these things.

If you really read him exhaustively, uh, these are fundamental issues.

The mission of the church is pretty fundamental. And I think one of the things that I would encourage people, if they don't want to go as far as saying, tell them

Keller's a heretic, which I'm comfortable with that at this point. I've looked into it enough. I can say, yeah, I think he is, but let's say you don't want to say it.

You don't want to say, or false teachers, the word I usually use. Um, I'm more comfortable with that. So false teacher, if you don't want to say that at the very least, you have to say, you have to admit this guy is so confusing and muddled on so many issues, including this one, that there's no reason to listen to him.

There's no reason to use his resources. There's no reason we should be paying any attention to what he says, because this is someone who is on shaky ground and he's blown back and forth by winds of doctrine at the very least.

That's the best construction to put on it. In my opinion, it becomes serious business. When Keller does things like this,

Keller focuses on poverty and injustice. And the author, uh, Peter Naylor says, he distorts the incarnation and the crucifixion.

He takes us away from the purpose of both, which was to save sinners and leads us into the byway of social transformation.

Why does he say that? Well, Jesus in his incarnation moved, and this is direct quote from Keller, moved in with the poor he lived with, ate with and associated with the socially ostracized, he raised the son of the poor widow and showed the greatest respect to the immoral woman who was a social outcast.

Indeed, Jesus spoke with women in public, something that a man with any standing in society would not have done.

But Jesus resisted the sexism of his day. Jesus also refused to go along with the racism of his culture.

So this is Jesus' example. This is what we're supposed to follow. He also says in Proverbs, we see God identifying with the poor symbolically, but in the incarnation, in the death of Jesus, we see

God identifying with the poor and marginal literally. In all these ways, Jesus identifies with the millions of nameless people who have been wrongfully imprisoned, robbed of their possessions, tortured and slaughtered.

Now here's the rub. Here's the crux of it. Okay. This is what Naylor says on page 158 of engaging with Keller.

Our Lord ate with tax gatherers and sinners, not because he was concerned to rectify their social ostracization, but because he came to call sinners to repentance.

Look at the examples from the New Testament of Jesus and the Gospels. Talking to the

Syrophoenician woman, which by the way, I mean, that story, you know, that that's the kind of thing that people would use to say.

I think even I saw a pastor not long ago, who was really on the left trying to say Jesus was racist for that, uh, that, that particular incident.

But, uh, let's just say that Jesus is the crusading anti -racist. You don't get that picture when you read the

Gospels or the crusading anti -sexist. You know, at the people who are feminist theologians and so forth, who are hardcore, they'll say that Jesus didn't go far enough, that he was, he was the, um, somehow in the, uh, under the impression that the majority understandings in his

Jewish society, his patriarchal Jewish society were, uh, the right understandings and he was limited.

I mean, they'll say this kind of stuff. It's an attack on God. Uh, they'll say the same thing about Paul. Paul usually gets chopped first, that Paul was just a sexist.

And, uh, but they, they treat Jesus in the way the neoconservatives treat the declaration of independence, right?

Uh, it's, it's all about equality for all people, but the founders didn't really believe that they were looking forward to the day that it would happen.

And guess what? Obergefell came marriage and it happened, right? They, that's how feminist theologians look at Jesus.

They'll say, well, Jesus set that ball in motion. He brought us a revolutionary change, but you know, he didn't live up to the revolution and so we're still kind of living up to it, same thing.

It's the same. It's, it's crud when you think about it, it's absolute crud because it undercuts, like why even follow the guy that is supposed to be perfect, but he didn't even get to live up to the, his own revolution he started.

It makes no sense, but, uh, I just say it makes the same sense too, is saying let's, let's honor Thomas Jefferson.

That slave master, right? It's like he wrote the declaration of independence though. It makes no sense. You have to come up with a, uh, an understanding that is fit for the time in which these people lived.

And for Jesus, he wasn't a social crusader. That's the, that's the thing that you have to shed.

That's where feminist theologians are wrong on this. Um, and it's, it's in the quote

I just read from Naloor. His goal was to save sinners. So guess what he did? If it meant some social taboos were broken in order to do the mission of saving sinners, he broke some social taboos to save sinners.

That's the key thing to walk away with. Jesus's mission was to save sinners. It wasn't to break, right?

So you're, it's a conflation of the means and the ends. Jesus's ends weren't to go break up social hierarchies and, and mores, uh, and to speak truth to power, right?

That, that wasn't Jesus's mission. If he'd happened to do those things, it was because he was after a different purpose.

He did it as a way, as a means to accomplishing an end. So that's, um, that's serious business though.

It's serious enough that Naloor says, when you distort the mission of Jesus like this, you're actually attacking the incarnation and crucifixion here.

You're distorting those things. At least you're taking us away from the purpose of both, which was to save sinners. And, and, and that's how you elevate social transformation.

And again, I've told you this every single episode of Tim Keller so far that we've talked about engaging Keller, what the play that Tim Keller does is it's all about the attributes and the character of God.

The people don't like in the secular world, a God who's judgmental, a God who sends people to hell, a

God who cares about sin, a God who has a standard that we don't like. They don't want that God. They want a God who's just lovey -dovey and there's hardly any definition to it.

And so Keller comes in with all these doctrines, he changes things a bit and this, he does the same thing. Guess what God becomes in this?

Guess what attributes of God are then championed? Well, God's justice is championed, but not the justice that would, you would think in Keller's understanding of hell and sin, create a standard by which to send people there.

No, no, no, no. People send themselves there. Hell is the punishment that they bring upon themselves. It's just God, it's God leaving them alone.

Right? So, okay. Apparently God doesn't do justice there, but guess what? God really cares about justice. It's making sure that there's no racial disparities and, you know, women are treated with a fair wage.

And that's, do you see this? Do you see how it's a reconfiguration of what

God, what justice is to God? It's an attack on God's character, in my opinion.

And it all boils down to that every step of the way, every theological issue we talk about with Tim Keller, that's where we end up going.

All right. Some considerations, some considerations before we get to the videos. Uh, the church may not act without a mandate.

There's a whole section on this and talks about in the old Testament. Naylor says, look, God had very specific directions for the church.

He, and some examples here on the screen, uh, the principle continues in our days. Paul says that no one ought to preach the gospel unless God has called him.

And so there's order. There's, there's a mandate. And so the church isn't supposed to go and be like, well, you know, part of our mission now, and this is equivalent to the gospel is to go do the social justice stuff.

Well, you don't have a mandate for it. Um, the other thing is there are three spheres, family, nation, and church. Westminster confession of faith says synods and councils are to handle or conclude nothing, but which is ecclesiastical and are not to intermetal with civil affairs, which concern the

Commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary or by way of advice for satisfaction of conscience, um, if they be there unto required by the civil magistrate.

So here you have a very clear boundary that the church handles ecclesiastical affairs, not the affairs of the broader society.

We must distinguish also between the body and its members. So there's a fallacy called the fallacy of composition, where you can say something like, um, the, the sum of the whole of something is the same as the sum of its parts.

So if each part is very light, let's say in a machine and the machine though is very heavy, the fallacy of composition, uh, would be that you say the machine is very light.

There's another fallacy called the fallacy of division. The fallacy division is taking a trait that is unique to the whole of something and applying it to a part.

So if you had a machine again, that was very heavy. You could say, well, this part of the machine, you know, my, um, my truck is a heavy truck, but the door handle on my truck is heavy because the truck said, well, that makes no sense, right?

That's the fallacy of division. So making these, these are very important distinctions to make.

And so there's a difference between let's say the, the church as an institution and the members of the church, and that you have to make that distinction.

Uh, they're not going to be the same. There there's different commands, different things that they can operate and abide by, et cetera.

Because the good Samaritan transported the wounded man on his own animal and paid for his care, it does not follow the church as a body ought to organize an ambulance service in a hospital or use its funds to help the victims of violence on the streets.

And, you know, in New York, there used to be, there still are some like Catholic charities, hospitals.

A lot of hospitals are started by religious organizations, but a lot of these organizations weren't churches. They were people who were

Christians who were concerned, who came together to form something. Now, and there are some cases that it is, it is churches doing that.

And I would, I think there probably was mission drift involved in some of this when that happened.

And, um, but you know, this is a good example though. The good Samaritan is a normative thing for the believers.

It doesn't mean that the church's mission now is to go set up an ambulance service for, you get the point. We must distinguish between the members and the office bearers as well.

So there might be members of the church and then there might be people in the church who are in government and they might have a unique responsibility.

We must distinguish between Jesus' mission and the church's mission. And, you know, this is a little harder one for some,

I think, but you know, why did Jesus came? So you can save the lost. Is there an overlap there? Does the church also have a responsibility?

Well, through the great commission, yes. The church carries out the mission of Christ on the earth. So there is overlap here, but it doesn't mean that everything

Jesus did is, uh, everything that the church is supposed to do. There are some unique things that Jesus does.

The church does not bring about a great society through its own work. Even the, the most hardened, hardened isn't the word most, uh, how would say, man, what's the word?

I don't want to say extreme either. The committed. All right. The most committed post -millennialist we'll say. Even the most committed post -millennialist.

They, they do not say that, uh, it's the church that will usher, at least they shouldn't be saying the church ushers in the kingdom and everything goes through the grid of the church.

They, they want to have a, um, a holistic transformation of society generally, and it includes the government.

It includes Christians getting involved in political office. It includes, uh, the education and the artistic realm.

And it's a group effort in all these different institutions. It's not just the church doing everything. Okay. So these, even like a good post -millennialist doesn't conflate these things either.

All right. Uh, let's see here. The church's mission. Here's what the church's mission is. The church's mission ought to not be in doubt because Christ has authoritatively commissioned it.

He clearly commanded his disciples to preach the gospel to every person, to teach the nations and make them disciples to go and testify of all that they had witnessed during the earthly ministry of Christ, to cast wide the net of the gospel and to supply spiritual food to the sheep, the apostle

Paul was called separately, but to the same task. Christ commissioned Paul to bear his name before the Gentiles, Kings and the children of Israel.

He understood his own appointment to be that of a preacher. He was separated to that task and refused to be diverted except to remember the poor.

And that's not a reference to a general social ministry, but a very specific collection among the Gentile churches for the sake of saints in Jerusalem and Judea.

So very clear throughout the new Testament, what the role of the church is, and it's not social transformation.

In fact, if you look at what Paul says about even things like slavery, you will not find it.

It's not in the mission of the church. It doesn't mean that William Wilberforce was wrong as an elected official to put an end to the slave trade in England.

Right. But he wasn't acting in the capacity as a pastor in a church.

It's very different. Now, if you're a pastor who's discipling people to go make disciples of the nations, you're going to teach them the things that Christ has said.

And in that, this goes with the parables of Jesus, that leaven is going to expand and the people who are impacted by this discipleship are going to function in their lives, some of them will be in government, but they're going to start implementing things that are godly.

And you're going to start seeing it in all kinds of areas. And I've said this to people before. I said, look, we've seen all these, these churches boasting about success, how many members they have coming out.

They're so involved in the community and so forth. This is the barometer that I would look at. If things are really going so well in a community, if the church, and this now only happens in the

South, pretty much in the United States, I mean, maybe in California, a little bit in some urban areas, but if you're really making a dent in society,

I don't, I I'm, I'm more skeptical of, we had this many conversions that people say they converted.

We had this many people fed at our event. I want to see, okay, did the bars and the strip clubs in your community lose business?

Are they shutting down? Um, is, uh, is there less litter on the street? I mean, if you really are impacting a community, okay, you're going to see changes like that.

And in a lot of these places where people say that there's like such big things happening, I'm not saying that God doesn't do things, uh, and that he's not working if those things don't happen, it might be a smaller group of people, but if it's earth shattering community shaking stuff, that's what you're going to see conclusion

Keller fails to establish his case on the basis of scripture. He focuses too narrowly on the problem of material poverty.

He misunderstands the Mosaic law and teaches an unbiblical concept of wealth redistribution, and he fails to observe proper distinctions between the spheres of church and state and between the church, uh, the, and the

Christian. So with that being said, let us go and watch some

Keller clips and I don't want this to be too long, but, um, let's see what

I'll do is I'll play. Uh, some,

I have two of them queued up here, so we're going to play both of them, uh, very short here, but just so you can hear

Keller saying some of the things, and again, these aren't, this isn't red meat stuff. I've played red meat stuff before. This is just Keller's basic at the ground level teaching on this particular topic.

Justice and doing justice and caring for the poor. It probably would help if I didn't do it at two speed with the

Bible is not just something for a few people that do good or types and the rest of us are just going on, just trying to be good people.

No, it essentially says, God is essentially saying, if you have a living faith, you have a real relationship with me, then a heart and life dedicated to social justice is the inevitable sign of real faith.

Before moving on, let me just say, Christians, if you're a professing Christian, did you know that that was part of your faith, that principle?

And secondly, if you've rejected Christianity, did you know that you were rejecting that? Did you know that was part of it?

So there's the absolute importance of justice. But here, maybe most important, what

I'm going to tell you tonight, in the Bible, the Bible has a very fulsome understanding of justice, a very fulsome understanding.

It has many aspects. Michael Sandel, who teaches at Harvard, has a course there on justice and actually turned it into a book called

Justice, What's the Right Thing to Do? And what's fascinating about the book is he says, part of the reason why in our country, there's not a lot of consensus over how we should be essentially conducting our society is because we have rival theories of justice and they're not the same.

There's a theory of justice that's kind of libertarian. It's all about equal opportunity only. There's an approach to justice that's more what he would call distributivist, that talks about redistributing assets.

And there's another one that's more what's called virtue ethics, which is justice is giving people what they deserve.

What's intriguing to me is I'm an exegete. That means I study the Bible. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a sociologist.

But when I read that and I see what the Bible says, I realize that in most cases, it's almost like what the

Bible says about justice covers it all. It's almost like the biblical understanding of justice is actually more comprehensive than any of these other theories.

Let me give you just three aspects. They're not the only three, but here's three aspects. One is one aspect of biblical justice is equal treatment for all.

Equal treatment for all. Leviticus 24, 20. We're going to stop there.

I just want you to see the play here. Keller starts with, if you don't do social justice and he uses that term, basically you're not a believer.

That's, that's the fruit. That's, that's the evidence that you're a believer. And if you don't have that, then we can conclude safely.

I guess you must not be one. And if you're not a Christian and you've rejected Christianity, then you're rejecting the social justice.

So, I mean, that's awfully convenient. I mean, you need Christianity for social justice, or at least you, it helps bolster social justice.

So there's a, a place for it in society because people want that, right? That's the hip thing right now.

And then the next thing he says is essentially the biblical view of justice is so comprehensive.

It encapsulates all these really contradictory theories of justice. You can't really have a libertarian theory that he talks about.

And the theory of redistribution are diametrically opposed to one another.

Yet the Bible somehow you can have both. And isn't that great in scripture, you can have both.

So you can violate someone's someone's rights. I suppose you could say, or maybe the better way to put it would be.

You can adjust the opportunities to make sure that they're not equal anymore for the sake of redistribution.

And somehow both, both parties, I guess, should be happy with that. I don't know. It, it, he doesn't have to do the hard work of working this all out, but saying it is very palatable.

And what's the problem with this? Well, you know, the problem with it is taking these modern understandings of social justice and what people want, and then imposing that back onto the, what the

Bible says. And putting it on priority number 10. So that guess what your priorities for justice, and I don't care where you're coming from that's

God's priority too, and you can rest safely in the idea that becoming a

Christian means being part of those efforts. Those, those good, noble efforts. And what would be more helpful is to try to do a sermon on, you know, what is justice according to scripture?

And I know he's started starting to go there, but look how he even starts it out though. He starts it out on the foot of, well, the

Bible is comprehensive. It's all these views of justice. You find there, uh, you can find them in scripture.

And, and so it's not, this isn't an exegete. Even though he says I'm an exegete, this, this isn't a sermon.

This isn't like a TED talk. I would encourage you to go listen to it. Tim Keller, a brief overview about justice. And you're going to hear a

TED talk from Tim Keller that is hip. And it, uh, fills in the boxes that need to be filled in for people to accept it as socially current.

And yet it tries to strap, it tries to attach the

Bible to the, uh, this engine that's already going through our society, the social justice engine.

So the Bible becomes a part of this. And, and so it's convenient now this,

I wouldn't say, I don't know if anything we heard was heresy or false teaching. I just, I want you to see why it's palatable.

I want you to see the play that's being made. Uh, and the opportunity for us to cram anything we want into these definitions, uh, especially for leftists.

Cause they cram in anything they want into social justice. And he's even saying redistribution here. Yeah. That's part of the biblical message too, which it's not, it's just not.

So, uh, let's go to this one. This is from the gospel coalition. It's two minutes long.

This is Tim Keller. And this is exactly what we're talking about with the both and of evangelical, uh, evangelism and justice, the church's mission being twofold.

And that's what the author of this book is arguing against. They're saying it's not twofold.

The church's mission is to make disciples. It is not to do this social justice stuff. And Tim Keller wants to add it on the equal plane.

And that's, I think the bigger problem with Keller, uh, that is rightfully pointed out here. I believe that the primary reason

I'm here, I'm following, I'm absolutely tracking with my friend, brother, Kevin DeYoung.

Uh, the primary thing that church is supposed to do is to preach the wrath of God against sin and to call people to repentance and to see people believe and have faith in Jesus Christ.

It's also true that the Bible says, Jesus says that Christians are supposed to be salt and light in the world.

Uh, you know what salt does? Salt penetrates the world and keeps it from going. Salt goes into meat to keep it from going bad.

Salt goes into meat to bring out the flavor and to keep it from going bad. And when Jesus says, you're the salt of the earth, he's talking about the fact that he has gathered together.

We're preaching the gospel, but spread out. We're not only talking to people, our friends about the gospel, but we're also loving our neighbor.

We're also out there being good Samaritans and it keeps the, it keeps society from going bad. It keeps it from becoming corrupt to some degree.

There's, there's corruption to some degree. And therefore, here it is ready.

It's the institution of the church. What's the mission of the church? What is the mission of the church in one way? I would say the mission of the church is to preach the gospel.

What is the mission of the church? Not just gathered, but also scattered, not just the church gathered as a body, but the church scattered all

Christian individuals is to both do that in word and deed both in other words, witness to the gospel, not only by sharing faith and calling people to repentance.

Yes. We're supposed to do that with our friends, but we're also supposed to be, uh, uh, doing justice and caring for the poor.

And it's when those two things come together that you really have a powerful mission when the world.

So if you don't have a powerful mission, unless you have both those things, and it's interesting, the language he uses church gathered versus church scattered.

So instead of saying as Christians, we do these things as salt and light in the community. And then as a church, corporate institution, whatever the gathering, we, we have these responsibilities in this hierarchy.

He makes out like it's both. It's both the church. The church does both these things. These Christians only evangelizing and not caring about society, not caring about, not doing the good

Samaritan thing. When the world sees Christians only evangelizing, you know what they see? They actually see people who just care about increasing their tribe, increasing their market share, increasing their power.

Now that's not true, but from the outside, they don't have the Holy Spirit. What else are they going to think when they see, uh, you do evangelism and the church grows and grows and grows.

They're going to say, I was just like every other business in the world, every other power block in the world, trying to get a bigger part of the market.

But when they see us evangelizing and pouring ourselves out for the poor and and caring about racial justice, when they see us doing both as Christians, then, then

I think the, frankly, the, the preaching of the gospel makes a lot more sense to them. Okay. So in order to make sense, make the gospel make sense to unbelievers who don't have the

Holy spirit. In order to make the gospel make sense, we have to, they have to see us caring about racial justice.

Do you, did you catch that? Seeing us care. That's even different than doing justice.

That's seeing us care about it. So, so in other words, this is, I think what I saw in 2020 with some people, you must post the black square in your

Instagram account, if you don't, the world's not seeing you care about racial justice and because they're not seeing you care, then they're not going to go for the gospel.

In other words, you, there's an extra requirement here. It's not just following the law of God, but now we've made following the law of God contingent on following the popular notions of our time.

They must see us care. And you see this, this is, there's not a Bible verse to back this up.

Uh, lots of categorical errors in what you just heard. The mission of the church is clear.

It's, it's not both these things. It's not this ridiculous, it's church gathered versus church gathered. It's not, uh, it's not, they must see us care.

And then these unbelievers will somehow, the gospel will make more sense to them. The gospel will make sense to them when they humble themselves before God and see their own sin.

Right. Tim Keller wants to put all the onus and pressure on the church that the church isn't achieving is, is not measuring up, is not, is failing to do a work that God has called them to do.

If they aren't caring sufficiently for certain things, political things. It's a lot of pressure for church to bear.

It's a lot. Let me just say this. Jesus's yoke is easy and light because he's not a Pharisee like Tim Keller.

It's, it's, it's not, uh, all these man -made rules that are now competing with or substituting for, or coming alongside of the work that's already there for us to do, and it's a simple work as, uh, as a church that, uh, and as members of a church, we participate in this and it's to make disciples.

And our gifts are given to build the body of Christ. And it's not a, uh, it's not a social activist force.

If you start getting on this role of social activism and they must see you care, and if they don't see care, they're not going to see the gospel.

Then you will be completely compromised because you'll never care enough.

The things that you're supposed to care about tomorrow are going to be, I mean, this was in 2019. I mean, we're in 2022.

What are you supposed to care about now? Oh my goodness. You should care about transgender people and how oppressed they are.

I mean, what if the world didn't see caring about it? See, this is a poison pill that Tim Keller is giving to everyone.

And here's, here's what I want to say to just, um, for the questions people might have is like,

John, you know, don't you think we should care? Well, sure. As Christians, we should care. Uh, we should care for those who are orphans and widows and those who are oppressed in any way.

I think there should be a caring there. It doesn't mean that it's a social media post though. It is the world. Doesn't whether the world sees me care or not, it doesn't really matter a whole lot, uh, you know, praise

God if they do, but if they don't, that's fine, it's more, I would be more focused on obeying the law of God and being a salt and light in my community as I go along my way.

And if there's a good Samaritan opportunity in front of me, which is how the good Samaritan works is something in front of you, and you do that, you do that to help the person.

And one of the results, maybe people see that they glorify, they see your good works, they glorify your father who is in heaven, great, but I'm not doing it to get brownie points from the world.

I'm not doing it to be palatable to them. I'm not doing it because I'm under some illusion that they're going to understand the gospel more.

If I do that, they're going to understand the gospel more when they return to terms with their own sin and their need for a savior.

There's only one thing that can do that. That's preaching the gospel. It's not going and caring about racial justice or something along those lines.

All right. Well, I hope that's helpful to some extent at least and somewhat of a,