A Conversation: Tim Keller, John Piper, D.A. Carson - Part 1

I noticed the links to these six videos on Justin Taylor's blog (which I don't read very often) and was intrigued to watch them all. I've mentioned before that I have a great respect and love for Don Carson and John Piper particularly but I confess I haven't watched or listened to much of Tim Keller. So I was interested to see what these three theologians would have to say in their discussion (during the Gospel Coalition Conference). Many of you will know that I devote a huge majority of my time to transcribing Rob Rufus's sermons from Hong Kong - and I thought these six video discussions would be a helpful break from that - as there is some thought-provoking material on there. The actual videos can be found on Facebook here.

Here's Part 1:

Don Carson:

“Well I’ll begin. There are some voices that say that ministries of mercy are bound to corrode the ministry of proclamation. If you indulge in those sorts of things sooner or later the Cross itself becomes eclipsed. How would you respond to that? And if we should be involved in such ministry, what safeguards should we introduce so we don’t fall into the traps that have historically taken place?

Tim Keller:

“I actually don’t think that at the programme level – at the level where we say; “that we should put too many people into it and we shouldn’t put this amount of money into the budget – we need to keep a balance or we need to give priority”. I don’t think that’s the level at which you safeguard. I think actually that the Gospel of grace if it is preached in such a way that we see sin as offence to God, we see substitionary atonement as the way in which that sin is taken away, we see that we are justified by grace alone – if the implications of that Gospel are the motivation of doing mercy ministry and justice to the poor - on the one hand that’s actually going to increase the amount of involvement with the poor but it’s also going to keep the social gospel out because the social gospel collapses evangelism into social improvement and say that is the good news. The good news is that we are going to make the world a better place. That’s only possible if you lose the old-fashioned classic confessional evangelical gospel.

So I actually think that the answer is a theological one. If you are preaching with passion the Gospel then it gives you the impetus to do ministry to the poor but also keeps you from the disproportionate emphasis on ministry to the poor.

John Piper:

“Yes it might be good to assume that the at least washers of this event agree that mercy ministries, deed ministries, ministries to the poor is given – you ask us to defend it or figure out or figure out how it doesn’t co-op the Gospel … well I just want to affirm that it exists! The Bible says in Galatians; “Do good to all men especially to those who are of the household of faith” and the parable of the Good Samaritan is designed to get in the face of people who say; “Who is my neighbour?”. The answer comes back – yes to the problem and we have to create it for a lot of people who aren’t engaged probably in caring for the poor – especially for people who haven’t measured up to their expectations of being deserving of their help. There is plenty in the New Testament it seems to me that says don’t buy into the argument against helping the poor because they don’t meet the right qualifications. So having said “Amen” to that – we then get to his (Tim Keller’s) answer to his (Don Carson’s) question about how you keep compassion from sweeping away evangelism and I think this is the way my old-fashioned, fundamentalist dad affected me.

It’s very hard to give up on the Gospel if you believe there is hell. That after this life there is an endless suffering for those who did not believe in the Gospel and therefore my take on the prioritisation of these things. The way I like to say it at Bethlehem is that; “We exist to relieve all suffering – especially eternal suffering!”. The “especially” there is a prioritisation of time intensity. If I succeeded totally in relieving all poverty in this age but didn’t succeed in the eternal problem then I would prove myself to be totally unloving and un-Christ-like”.

Don Carson:

“What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul”.

John Piper:

“Yere. So as far as safeguards go, it is a orthodox grasp of the reality of the eternality of the torment of conscious hell. If a person really believes that and preaches that, then those who are starting to become enamoured by a transformational way to do Christianity that starts to minimise the Gospel – they are not going to like that. So if the Gospel Coalition that we have been pulled together by can keep saying these true, deep, powerful things at the centre of the Gospel, those who are leaning towards distortion or abandonment or minimisation are not going to get near this – and I think that is our calling.

I think when I try to figure out the relative balance and strategies of doing mercy ministries in New York or Deerfield or Minneapolis – I get confused, I don’t know what the best strategies are and so trying to figure out what the safeguards are there – I guess that’s what you are saying (to Tim Keller) is undoable. And I think what can I do and so I can go to the Bible and here are a few things that if you say them and believe them – the function is ballast in your boat so that the winds of distortion and minimalisation don’t go away and don’t knock us over”.

Tim Keller:

“I absolutely agree with John and I think that some people listening to this should not get the impression that when we say you have to give Gospel evangelistic ministry the pride of place in a church, then some people will say – we are saying that the soul doesn’t matter. That’s not what we are saying. We are saying that the eternal matters more than the temporary. We are never saying that the body doesn’t matter and therefore we don’t take care of people who are suffering. For John to say “eternal suffering – especially” is absolutely right and is common sense.

We are saying that the eternal is more important than the temporary not that the body is less important than the soul. Having said that I think that a balance in the way the church ministers will come out of this formulation that we are talking about. There is an asymmetry that doesn’t eat up – and especially doesn’t in my experience – the ministry of caring for the poor. And I am looking forward to seeing churches that keep that balance but keep the Gospel primary. There will be a balance in the way the ministry goes because of those who give the Gospel priority. I do think if you don’t give the Gospel priority then you lose the balance and end up being a church that is trying to improve social conditions.

John Piper:

“So let me come back at either of you with this – because the answer to this question will clarify for some what we are saying. If we believe what we have just said about the prioritisation of the Word and of the Gospel over and against feeding the poor – does that then imply that when we are not succeeding in getting converts in our combined mercy work ministries then we just back off and go somewhere where the deed ministry is more fruitful. Is that implied?”

Don Carson:

“Absolutely not – in exactly the same way that if the Lord calls you to a place where there are not a lot of converts and you are engaged in active evangelism with not a lot of fruit, that you should go somewhere where there is a lot of fruit”.

John Piper:

“And a lot of people say that!”.

Don Carson:

“I know – it’s horrendous. And partly I have a visceral reaction because my dad worked in that context for so long where there was almost nothing. But how are you going to look at missionaries who have gone to Japan and South Korea and say that the missionaries who went to South Korea are right smack in the middle of God’s will and the missionaries who went to Japan are all a load of failures? What can you say? Some people are called to really hard dry times.

Isaiah in chapter 6 – you preach until there is so much judgement that your message is actually evoking unbelief! So when we get involved in mercy ministry or in word ministry we need to learn to be faithful without calculating our faithfulness based on the basis of our fruitfulness and finally you have to leave it in God’s hands".

Part 2 to follow ...