A common vision can unite people of very different temperaments.

— Timothy J. Keller

A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person's faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection. Believers should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts — not only their own but their friends' and neighbors'. It is no longer sufficient to hold beliefs just because you inherited them. Only if you struggle long and hard with objections to your faith will you be able to provide the grounds for your beliefs to skeptics, including yourself, that are plausible rather than ridiculous or offensive. And, just as important for our current situation, such a process will lead you, even after you come to a position of strong faith, to respect and understand those who doubt.

— Timothy J. Keller

A job is a vocation only if someone else calls you to do it for them rather than for yourself. And so our work can be a calling only if it is reimagined as a mission of service to something beyond merely our own interests. Thinking of work mainly as a means of self-fulfillment and self-realization slowly crushes a person.

— Timothy J. Keller

All change comes from deepening your understanding of the salvation of Christ and living out the changes that understanding creates in your heart.

— Timothy J. Keller

Anyone who wonders if a Christian can sin is ignorant about sin's enslaving nature.

— Timothy J. Keller

As I took up life as a minister, I tried to understand why so many people resisted and rejected God, I soon realized that perhaps that main reason was affliction and suffering. ... But at the same time, I learned that just as many people find God through affliction and suffering. They find that adversity moves them toward God rather than away. ... When pain and suffering come upon us, we finally see not only that we are not in control of our lives, but that we never were.

— Timothy J. Keller

At Gethsemane: "Jesus is subordinating His loudest desires to His deepest desires.

— Timothy J. Keller

Certainly we should be very active in seeking God, and Jesus himself called us to 'ask, seek, knock' in order to find him. Yet those who enter a relationship with God inevitably look back and recognize that God's grace had sought them out, breaking them open to new realities.

— Timothy J. Keller

Christ literally walked in our shoes and entered into our affliction. Those who will not help others until they are destitute reveal that Christ's love has not yet turned them into the sympathetic persons the gospel should make them.

— Timothy J. Keller

Christ's miracles were not the suspension of the natural order but the restoration of the natural order. They were a reminder of what once was prior to the fall and a preview of what will eventually be a universal reality once again--a world of peace and justice, without death, disease, or conflict.

— Timothy J. Keller