Coram Deo ~

Looking at contemporary culture from a Christian worldview

What Is Wrong with the World? by Tim Keller BOOK CLUB

What Is Wrong with the World?  The Surprising, Hopeful Answer to the Question We Cannot Avoid by Tim Keller

Please join us in reading the first book of Tim Keller’s that has been released since his death in 2023.

From the Amazon description:

“During his tenure as founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, Timothy Keller explained on a weekly basis how the Bible provides the most comprehensive and sophisticated response to the fundamental questions of life. In What Is Wrong with the World?, based on a series of teachings given at Redeemer, Keller answers the title’s pressing question by revealing that the only thing that can account for the world’s pain and chaos is what the Bible calls sin. This clear-eyed and ultimately hopeful book reveals how sin is not simply a “bad” thing we do but something much more subtle and complex, affecting our relationships, our thinking, and every aspect of our existence. And only when we recognize sin for what it is can we find the profound, life-transforming answer our souls long for.”

This week, we look at the Preface by Kathy Keller. Here are a few quotes from the chapter that I found helpful:

  • Tim preached the sermons on which this book is based in the 1990s as a series under the title “The Faces of Sin.”
  • In the years since Tim died, I have tried to bring some kind of order to all the books, papers, talks, sermons, lectures, classes, notes, journals, and jottings he left behind.
  • I did, however, manage to extract the folder titled “The Faces of Sin” and, after consulting with a number of knowledgeable people, decided it would be a good start for a book about sin.
  • Each chapter ends with a prayer because Tim was aware, as all mature Christians are, that we deceive ourselves most concerning our own sinfulness.
  • So as you read, allow God to probe you for your hidden sins and to give you a contrite and broken heart over the ways you have broken both his law and his heart. Grace is there for the asking.

Introduction

  • The supreme question that each of us asks ourselves time and time again: What is wrong with the world? What is wrong with the human race?
  • We will never be able to resolve our personal problems, let alone the rest of the world’s problems, unless we possess a full comprehension of sin.
  • Each chapter in the book illuminates a specific aspect of sin and explores how we might be saved from it.
  • There are two reasons why it is not just important but all-important that you understand sin. The first reason is that the biblical teaching about sin is one of the strongest arguments for the truth of Christianity. The second reason is that it equips you to best handle life as it is.
  • Without a full understanding of sin, you won’t have the grounds for the optimism necessary to remain hopeful in the midst of life’s harsh realities.
  • If you don’t understand sin, you’ll be neither pessimistic enough nor optimistic enough to deal with life.

Chapter 1: Sin as Predator

  • The problem is not only that there is sin in the human heart—though, as the rest of the Bible makes clear, human sin is the primary reason for the world’s condition—but also that we don’t, and sometimes won’t, recognize or acknowledge the power of sin. We underestimate it.
  • There’s nothing more important for us than understanding sin’s true nature.
  • We are told three things about sin in that one sentence. First, we are told that sin hides itself. It crouches. Second, we are told that sin is tremendously powerful. It wants nothing more than to have us. Third—and this is implicit in the sentence—we have hope against it. We must rule over it, master it. In one sentence, God tells us about the hiddenness of sin, the power of sin, and that there’s a hope to defeat sin.
  • Cain’s problem is that he is halfhearted, not wholehearted. That posture is tremendously common in the average churchgoer today.
  • Our own worst sins look much smaller to us than they do to anyone else.
  • All of us need people who can see in us what we cannot see in ourselves. This is crucial because if we leave our sins unaddressed, they will grow larger than we could ever imagine.
  • After you’ve done a sin, the sin does you. Sin is not done with you after you’re done with it. When you sin, it doesn’t just pass away; it takes on a life of its own and wants to devour you.
  • Our sins are not done with us when we’re done with them. They will stop at nothing to overtake us.

Chapter 2: Sin as Self-Deception

  • Self-deception may not be the worst thing we do, but it’s what makes us capable of terrible things.
  • Self-deception is the ability to know the truth and yet not know it because you don’t want to. Self-deception is the tendency to rationalize and justify things we know are wrong.
  • We have an infinite capacity to lie to ourselves. If we don’t like the truth, we develop ways not to know it.
  • Three of the most prevalent ways we smother truth are blaming others, focusing only on our goodness, and minimizing our sin.
  • At the heart of self-deception is a refusal to handle the most earth-shattering truth of all. If there is a God, he owns you utterly and you must obey him completely. If there is no God, your life is meaningless and nothing is truly right or wrong and no one knows which end is up.
  • We all know in our hearts that we’re sinners. We don’t want to see it. But if we do not understand the grace of God, we can’t escape self-deception. It is inevitable.

Chapter 3: Sin as Leaven

  • The way yeast works in bread is the way sin works in us.
  • Sin is most powerful when we don’t even see it, when we’re not troubled about it, and when we’re offended by the idea that we’re a sinner in the first place. This is when the predator is most effective—it takes us over from the inside, from the motives of our heart.
  • Jesus also tells us that if we do not master our sin, it will spread relentlessly.
  • We can’t isolate sin in one corner of our heart, expecting it to remain separate, unaffecting other areas of our life.
  • No matter what form it takes, sin flourishes when ignored.
  • The essence of sin is the proud denial of grace.
  • When we deny that we’re sinners who deserve nothing from God yet have been given everything when Jesus died for us, we deny the very idea of grace and blame both our problems and our lack of faith on God.

Chapter 4: Sin as Mistrust

  • The metaphor of the two trees shows us that the essence of sin is putting our roots into something besides God.
  • The person who thinks themselves religious but doesn’t functionally, in practice, place their trust and hope in Christ doesn’t actually have their roots in God at all.
  • Whatever your mind draws hope from, that is your religion. It’s your ultimate concern.
  • If anything is a condition for faith in God, then that condition is the real object of faith rather than the Lord.
  • Sin is making God a means to an end instead of being the end itself.
  • Only one person in history started next to the river and was uprooted to be thrown into the desert. Only one.
  • We must take the time daily to meditate on his substitution of himself to pay for our sin, otherwise we will dry up. Our roots won’t be receiving the nourishment and hydration they need.