Timothy Keller

One of the signs that you may not grasp the unique, radical nature of the gospel is that you are certain that you do.

A triune God would call us to converse with him . . . because he wants to share the joy he has. Prayer is our way of entering into the happiness of God himself.

The Bible judges the church; the church does not judge the Bible. The Bible is the foundation for and the creator of the church; the church is not the foundation for or creator of the Bible. The church and its hierarchy must be evaluated by the believer with the biblical gospel as the touchstone or plumb line for judging all truth claims.

Careful obedience to God’s law may serve as a strategy for rebelling against God

God so loved us and hates suffering that he was willing to come down and get involved in it.

Faith is not opposed to reason, but it is sometimes opposed to feelings and appearances.

Jesus's miracles are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts, that the world we all want is coming.

But resurrection is not just consolation — it is restoration. We get it all back — the love, the loved ones, the goods, the beauties of this life — but in new, unimaginable degrees of glory and joy and strength.

We do not have to make ourselves suffer in order to merit forgiveness. We simply receive the forgiveness earned by Christ. 1 John 1:9 says that God forgives us because He is ‘just.’ That is a remarkable statement. It would be unjust of God to ever deny us forgiveness, because Jesus earned our acceptance! In religion we earn our forgiveness with our repentance, but in the gospel we just receive it.

Suffering is actually at the heart of the Christian story.

Some suffering is given in order to chastise and correct a person for wrongful patterns of life (as in the case of Jonah imperiled by the storm), some suffering is given not to correct past wrongs but to prevent future ones (as in the case of Joseph sold into slavery), and some suffering has no purpose other than to lead a person to love God more ardently for himself alone and so discover the ultimate peace and freedom.

Love is counting someone else’s needs and interests as more important than your own needs or interests or comfort.

The peace of God is not the absence of fear. It, in fact, is His presence.

Jesus was much more interested in the quality of the people's response to him than in the quantity of the crowd.

Not everyone is your brother or sister in the faith, but everyone is your neighbor, and you must love your neighbor.

Hell is having to execute a pointless act from which nothing ever comes except the need to do it again.

Like a surgeon, friends cut you in order to heal you.

God made you to love him supremely, but he lost you. He returned to get you back, but it took the cross to do it. He absorbed your darkness so that one day you can finally and dazzlingly become your true self and take your seat at his eternal feast.

The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.

As many have learned and later taught, you don't realize Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.

Friendship is a deep oneness that develops when two people, speaking the truth in love to one another, journey together to the same horizon.