Tim Keller: The Gospel

I'm beginning a series on the life of Jesus on the 20th, and I was reminded of some Tim Keller sermons I've heard before that I think are very good.  Here they are for you.  I've also added them to my post "Tim Keller Articles."

"The Gospel" (MP3s) by Tim Keller
1. Who is Jesus?  2.  Lord of the Wine  3. Born of the Gospel

Comments

[Michael]

Steve,

You've been a posting machine lately! I can never get enough Keller! Thanks.

[anonymous coward]

Why does Keller charge for his sermons? Yeah, I'm cheap schlub, but I wish more pastors took the John Piper approach and made nearly everything free.

[Tim Keller]

If a pastor doesn't ask for money for each sermon, then it is only the people inside the church who end up financially supporting the ministry--because the cost-burden of producing the sermons must be shouldered by someone. If, however, you ask for money for each sermon, then the ministry support is spread out among everyone using the ministry, home and abroad. That seems much more equitable, doesn't it? Everyone who pays for the tapes makes it possible for the ministry to expand and serve more people. So, in the end, it's not true that some ministers 'charge' for their sermons and others don't. Everyone does, actually. Someone has to financially support the ministry. This is the way we've decided to do it.

[pappadeas]

So, when Paul wrote to a church, he expected to be compensated? I think in today's 'members tithe' world, any preacher who has a sermon worth buying is probably living very well. The ones I know are. Making sermons a product to sell at a profit to expand a ministry doesnt sound particularly biblical. I could be wrong, and I'm open to correction in this matter. I know that I've swallowed hard a time or two spending $3 for a sermon placed on CD that cost 16 cents and that was purchased with my offering. Having said all of that, I think Tim has something to say, and I might pay to hear it-thus far I've only read Keller's work-but I don't think we can say it's biblical. Of course, no one's saying that.

[petew]

pappadeas...

whaaaa...? maybe I'm not following because it's late, but your comments made no sense to me...especially the last two sentences.

As for the bits I do understand...I'm wondering why you're taking exception to Tim's rationale for charging for his talks. Are you saying that making a profit isn't biblical or using the profits to make these resources available to more people isn't biblical? I'm not really sure what you mean there.

Tim...
I am curious to know why you choose to produce and sell cd's when you can post the mp3s for free on the internet for people to download and make their own copies. Is there a copyright issue involved?

[Tim Keller]

You can get Redeemer sermons in mp3s and CDs and tapes. There are still lots of people who don't know how to use mp3s. Lots.

[Tim Keller]

And petew--If it is unBiblical to charge for an audio sermon, why wouldn't it be unBiblical to charge for a written sermon--in a pamphlet or a book form? Preachers have asked people to purchase written sermons for years. Spurgeon's weekly sermons cost a penny on the streets of London.

[Steve McCoy]

I like the idea of offering sermons for free if possible, but if Tim and other popular ministries offered them for free their church would take a huge hit. MacArthur offers them for free if you can't pay, but they also have radio ministry and send me stuff every months looking for money. Some ministries put the mp3 sermons online for free for a while and then take them offline. Seems like a helpful way to do it, but I haven't thought it all through.

My church can offer sermons for free all we want and it still wouldn't increase our distribution. :)

But Tim is obviously concerned with the output of the sermons and ministry, not the money. I don't think he is building a bigger house because he sells his sermons.

[petew]

Tim...I'm afraid you misread my question or maybe you meant to address your question to pappadeas instead of me. I wasn't challenging the biblical warrant for charging for sermons, I was merely curious - not skeptical - about your rationale. Like I said, all I'm familiar with is offering sermons for free...so I don't have any insight into understanding the alternative, that's all.

[Tim Keller]

Petew-You are right. I was responding to pappadeas. Sorry!

There really isn't any way to offer tapes/CDs/even mp3 downloads 'free.' In some cases, the church members financially support the ministry so everyone else in the world who wants them sermons can have them without charge. That may be a good thing to do, but I don't see how anyone can insist that it is the church members' Biblical duty. In other cases (Piper and MacArthur perhaps?) a ministry's book sales might make it possible to offer the audio sermons free of charge. In that case, the book-buyers support the audio listeners. (But I haven't written books that can perform that function.) In other cases, as Steve implies, ministries have to solicit financial support in other ways. But, in any case, the sermons can't be offered free. Someone has to pay the folks who reproduce the sermons so they can eat!

[Pete Williamson]

No permanent damage done, Tim. I am grateful for your willingness to interact with us on these matters.

[pappadeas]

The sermon is delivered. The preacher is paid a salary. Free (or very cheap, under $30) software records the sermon in MP3 format. It takes 8 minutes to FTP an hour long (10mg) sermon to your website, to be streamed or downloaded for free. Webhosting is cheap. If someone wants the message on a CD, encourage them to burn their own download. How would it burden a local church to offer their pastor's sermons to the world for free? I don't get it. Whatever amount ANY church pays for web hosting, it's a miniscule budget item. I'm not insisting it's anyone's duty, my point was that the sale of sermons (or epistles) has no Biblical basis. It is the opposite of the Biblical model.

[Jason Bridges]

It seems that the $4 tape ministry is a little excessive for the equipment and labor, but then it is the NYC. I would love to see... and I think it would be more Biblical to see... the sermons available on-line for a nominal fee, even to i*net related costs: say, $1 for 4 sermons? That would be the best way to get the message out. It's a shame to think that many people don't hear a good message because it's $4 a pop. I know that it would have been a huge blessing to have a stack of tapes when i was onboard my chaplain-less ship in the Navy, but at the time, my E-3 paygrade wouldn't allow it.

[Jay]

I can't agree more with Jason. I, for one, am a student living on a tight budget and although I'd love to listen to Tim Keller's past sermon series on various topics, at the price of $2.50 for an mp3 file, I can only download so many of them before it becomes a financial burden. At least, I hope that the Redeemer store would provide a way to get the messages out to those who want them but simply can't afford them in the form of student discount, or for free for those who are financially not well-off, unlike some of the young professional New Yorkers who make up the large portion of the Redeemer church.

[pde]

Sorry for joining this discussion so late, and maybe this won’t even get read. However, after reading all the comments, I am bothered by the acceptance of the idea that it is reasonable to charge for sermons. After going through the prior postings, I have tried to pick out the points that attempted to validate that notion, in order to present my response.

REASON FOR CHARGING:
“If a pastor doesn't ask for money for each sermon, then it is only the people inside the church who end up financially supporting the ministry--because the cost-burden of producing the sermons must be shouldered by someone.”

OBJECTION:
If we look at the ministry of Paul, he allowed only his “local” church to support him, and the sermons and lectures that he gave, were indeed free. When he needed money he found other means (removed from preaching the gospel), such as tent-making to get by. So, indeed the cost of ministry must, and should, be borne by the congregation. Can the congregation make money through other means? Yes, car washes, rummage sales, bake sales, voluntary contributions – anything but from selling the gospel.

Once you start charging for one ministry to pay for another one, at what point does it end, at what point does the church minister out of mercy? How can the free grace of God through Christ be truly presented to the world when everything the church offers comes with a price tag? I’m not saying it isn’t practical, but pragmatism is shortening the arm of the church.

REASON FOR CHARGING:
“If it is unBiblical to charge for an audio sermon, why wouldn't it be unBiblical to charge for a written sermon--in a pamphlet or a book form? Preachers have asked people to purchase written sermons for years. Spurgeon's weekly sermons cost a penny on the streets of London."

OBJECTION:
My understanding was that Spurgeon’s sermons were sold by street vendors, not by him or his church. Regardless, as we move away from using the bible as a guide and start looking at what the churches, clergy and laymen have done, past and present, we will find many questionable actions. And even though much Biblical literature is sold, there are a lot of pamphlets, tracts and bibles that are given away free, as part of many ministries in the world. In summary, just because others are doing something, it doesn’t necessarily make it right. A by-product of ministry may well turn out that it brings money into the church, but that surely can not be the goal of ministry, the goal is to spread the gospel to everyone, not just those who can afford it.

REASON FOR CHARGING:
“There really isn't any way to offer tapes/CDs/even mp3 downloads 'free.'” And “But, in any case, the sermons can't be offered free. Someone has to pay the folks who reproduce the sermons so they can eat!”

OBJECTION:
These statements make it sound like there are no volunteers at Redeemer. Surely there must be those there that would donate their time toward this effort. Honestly, if I were living anywhere near Redeemer, I would consider it a privilege to work towards this goal.

Seriously, if Redeemer were to take the position of “We want to have a website with all our sermons available for free download, and it’s going to take X number of dollars to set it up, and X number of dollars a month to maintain it.,” I am sure there would be a great outpouring of funds from those of us outside of Redeemer to accomplish this. While I could spend $10 a month to supply myself with Redeemer’s sermons, I would rather spend it towards getting them out to the world, and from all of the responses I have heard from across the internet, I know hundreds of others would be overjoyed to do this too. It would be an opportunity to provide a ministry that is solely funded by voluntary funds by the families and extended families of Redeemer. Then we could all have the honor of helping others to be blessed by the sermons that have blessed us.

Tim has a great gift, a very great gift for reaching the masses through his teaching and preaching. I am writing this response because it is so frustrating to see money as a barrier that is keeping it from those who need it most.

[notorious BIG]

I would like to know why Tim Keller does charge for his sermons. All anyone has given me is speculation. If someone from Redeemer would respond I would like to know. Thank you

[Notorious BIG]

Also, how expensive is it to post mp3's for free. Is it as expensive as the sell of all Tim Keller's CD's?

Your fellow tightwad,

Notorious BIG