Timothy Keller, author and founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, is sharing a cancer update and asking people to pray.
In his update, Keller shares that even though his pancreatic cancer was previously doing well, they recently found new tumors.
“I will shortly be returning to the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD in order to spend April doing a variation of the immunotherapy that I received last June,” said Keller on Facebook. “It was successful in eradicating 99% of the tumors. However, new tumors have developed.”
Keller was initially diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer in May 2020. Since that time he’s continued to write and preach.
“They are unfortunately in some fairly inconvenient places, so the doctors encouraged us to go through the treatment again, this time targeting a different genetic marker of the cancer.”
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In a recent interview about his cancer journey this second time around, Keller shared that it’s made his prayer life that much stronger, which he’s thankful for.
“It was fairly brutal last June, so we approach this with an awareness of how much prayer we need. Please pray for our trust and dependence on God, for his providential oversight of the medical preparations now in process, and for our desire to glorify God in whatever comes our way. Thank You.”
Keller has written many books on faith and some of his best-sellers are The Prodigal God, The Meaning of Marriage, and The Reason for God. His most recent, Forgive: Why Should I and How Can I?, deals with America’s forgiveness crisis.
“[Knowing] you are really are going to die changes the way you look at your time, the way you look at God, the way you look at your spouse. Everything just changes when you actually realize time is limited and I’m mortal.”
The pastor and author shared that having faith in God hasn’t kept him from experiencing anxiety during his cancer journey. However, he has found comfort in the book of Psalms.
“There’s nothing like the Psalms to teach you,” Keller says. “The way I deal with the anxiety is I keep my Psalms up, and I keep my exercise up.”
This article was originally published at CHVN Radio.
Sylvia St. Cyr is an on-air radio host at CHVN, a Christian outlet in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
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On TRR’s website, this article appeared next to the latest story about scandal-ridden Hillsong. Side-by-side photographs of Tim Keller and the Houstons strike a jolting contrast: a man humbly seeking prayer as he prepares to leave this world and a couple who seem to love this world and its temporal attractions (aptly summarized in I John 2:16).
Both families need the Lord’s blessings; let’s pray for the Kellers and the Houstons.
Several weeks ago I watched in dismay as a number of people on Twitter piled on Tim Keller. I did not bother to research carefully to find out what they were all up in arms about because I do. not. care; taking issue with the word “winsome” seemed to have been their rallying cry. At the time I thought, “Tim Keller’s cancer treatment must not be going well. Look at all these healthy young adults taking potshots at him.” Social media creates perfect conditions for misguided anger to grow and spread.