Greetings and salutations. This is Life and Books and Everything. I'm Kevin DeYoung,

and I want to read an article today that came out recently from First Things.

Let me give you a little background.

This is a book review that I've written,

but it's not at all a traditional book review several months ago.

First Things contacted me and said they were thinking about reviewing one of Tim Keller's books,

wanted to write an appreciative review

for Tim, but not just thinking of a book, but of more broadly of Tim's ministry. And they said,

what do you think about maybe somebody writing on his new book on forgiveness? I said, I think

that's a really good idea, but do you know about this

new book that Colin Hanson has written a kind of quasi biography of Tim Keller? That might be an

even better opportunity to do what you want to do, which is given an assessment not just of a

particular book, but of Keller's ministry and influence more broadly.

So they said, that's a great idea. And then the next thing was, would you want to write that?

And I said, well, thank you for asking. I'll think about it, but you need to know that this book

by Colin Hanson called Timothy Keller, his spiritual and intellectual formation,

you need to know I'm good friends with Colin and I'm also good friends with Tim.

And so it would be hard for me to write a dispassionate book review that's written by a friend,

about a friend. And they said, that's great.

That's not what we want you to do.

We don't want this, a typical book review where you summarize the book and then you give some strengths and weaknesses.

We want you to give a personal reflection.

...