Your Work Matters to the World

Tim Keller and the Ministry of Competence

My teacher husband is beginning the process of retirement after 33 years in an elementary school classroom. Believe it or not, it’s more complicated and requires more thought and paperwork to STOP teaching than it does to accept a new job. Nonetheless, he’s encouraged by the realization that his work has mattered and his presence has been life-giving to a couple of generations of learners.

I’m looking forward to having him underfoot more of the time, but other than that, not much will change for me. After all, I scuttled the ship of my career thirty-one years ago when I opted to stay home with my sons. Can you really “retire” if you don’t have a “real job”?

From time to time, I suppose I’ve questioned the value of my work at home, but that niggling doubt was always squashed by the conviction that what we were building into our four sons was more valuable than any paycheck or resume gold I could have been accruing. I loved the chaotic years of homeschooling, minivan shuttling, massive gardens, and even the industrial scope of daily laundry and food prep.

What’s Your Plot of Dirt?

As a gardener, I considered my mothering (and now my grandmothering) work as “tending.” Pushing back chaos in my home was a lot like pushing back against the growth of weeds in my garden. Every day, there was something to do, and with God’s help, I worked away at it.

Author and New York City pastor Tim Keller called this “the ministry of competence.” Every one of us has been allowed to faithfully tend some little plot of dirt. For my husband, it has been a classroom. For me, it has been our home.

Whatever your calling, “the way to serve God best is to do the job as well as it can be done. Excellent work is a form of love.”

“Excellent work is a form of love.” Tim Keller

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Smethurst has organized Keller’s insights along eight broad categories:

1. Jesus Christ in All Scripture¹

Tim Keller’s teaching always came back to the great reality that Jesus is the main character and the main point of the Bible:

Yes, you [should] obey the things the Bible says. But if you read it as all about you and something you have to do to live up to God, that will just crush you into compliance. But if you read it as salvation by grace through Jesus Christ, it’ll melt your heart into wanting to obey those things.”

2. A Tale of Disordered Loves

Sin is what’s wrong with the world, and all sin comes back to idolatry or disordered love for something God has created.

What the heart most wants, the mind finds reasonable, the emotions find valuable, and the will finds doable… What makes people into what they are is the order of their loves—what they love most, more, less, and least.”

3. Why Religion Needs Grace

The Bible teaches us only one way to be reconciled to God, but there are two ways to reject him: “unapologetic idolatry” or “performative morality.” Keller illustrated his point using the two brothers in the parable of the prodigal son.

The bad son enters the father’s feast, but the good son will not… We can almost hear the Pharisees gasp as the story ends. It was the complete reversal of everything they had ever been taught.”

4. How the Gospel Transforms Relationships

Keller put a high value on friendship, an important element of his urban pastoral ministry, and, above all, in his understanding of what matters deeply to God.

The busy New York Christian thing is, I’m very busy with my career… and you’re lucky I’m even coming to church. But I’m sorry, that’s not good enough… You have to join, you have to be a member of a church… Without knowing Jesus, you would never know these people; [and] without knowing these people very well, you will never know Jesus—at least you won’t know the full, multidimensional beauty and glory of your Savior.”

5. Serving God and Others in Your Job

Keller’s ministry began in a church that served mainly blue-collar workers, and he carried that understanding of regular, everyday work into his ministry to Manhattan professionals and performers. All work was created by God and will ultimately be redeemed by Jesus Christ when he makes all things new.

The glorious teaching of the Bible is you can be a person on an assembly line, you can be just turning a screw, you can be somebody who’s just sweeping a floor—but if you see it as part of the whole complex way God has enabled us to bring the potential out of his creation—then you can do it with joy.”

6. Embodying the Compassion of the King

Keller believed “a life poured out in deeds of justice and mercy, especially for the poor, is an inevitable sign of saving faith.” Once again, he turned to a parable to illustrate a biblical perspective on this topic:

We tend to exert ourselves for people like us, and for people whom we like. Jesus will have none of that. By depicting a Samaritan helping a Jew, Jesus could not have found a more forceful way to say that anyone at all in need… is your neighbor. Not everyone is your brother or sister in the faith, but everyone is your neighbor, and you must love your neighbor.”

7. How Prayer Unlocks Intimacy with God

The topic of prayer was challenging for Keller both as a writer and as a practitioner. He pointed to his regular practice of prayer with his wife, Kathy, as one of the most formative spiritual disciplines of his life, and although he was in the habit of both morning and evening prayer, after fifty years of ministry, he concluded, “I should have prayed more.”

It’s possible to have an external kind of religion and be motivated by environmental factors. But only God sees you when you pray. As a result, it’s your prayer life that tells you what you’re really made of spiritually.”

8. How Suffering Drives Us into God’s Heart

Every pastor has a front-row seat to the suffering of others, and it becomes their life work to bring biblical meaning and comfort to their flock. Keller applied the solid teaching from his pastoral ministry to his own personal suffering as he battled cancer, the disease that ultimately ended his life. He addressed the problem of pain with a firm grasp on what the Bible reveals about the character of God:

I don’t know what the reason for your suffering is, but I do know what it isn’t. It’s not that God doesn’t love you. God actually came to earth and got involved in our suffering… And over the years as a pastor and as a sufferer, that has been the thing that has helped my heart.”

Whether you’re an avid reader of all Keller’s work or you’re new to his writing, Tim Keller on the Christian Life is a valuable collection of biblical wisdom that puts on display the transforming power of the Gospel.

Who are the authors most helpful to you in interpreting and clarifying the biblical story of redemption?

What books have been most influential in formulating your own biblical theology?

What Other Reviewers Are Saying

“Matt Smethurst takes us into the genius of Tim’s ministry, drawing from its breadth to synthesize and distill the key insights for how Jesus Christ changes us from the inside out. This is a deeply edifying read.” Dane Ortlund, Senior Pastor, Naperville Presbyterian Church, Naperville, Illinois; author, Gentle and Lowly

“Matt Smethurst has done a wonderful job organizing Tim’s teaching on the gospel in everyday life—in a way that is engaging, practical, and heart and life changing. May this gospel continue to transform us and everything our lives touch. Read and reread this book!” Paul David Tripp, author, Everyday Gospel

Holding You in the Light,

In Tim Keller on the Christian Life, @MattSmethurst has dug into Keller’s expansive body of work with the goal of synthesizing and distilling his best teaching on what it means to be a Christian. @crossway

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1. Headings are direct quotes from the book’s chapter subtitles, and each quotation from Tim Keller is taken from Smethurst’s synthesis of Keller’s work. ↩︎

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