Certainly, Keller possessed outsized gifts, but he also put his time to good use. A friend of mine who knew Keller personally says that many desire Keller’s impact and influence without his piety and study. His piety was more than his reading of great works and Scripture, but it was not less than that.

Nearly three years after his death, Christians are still talking about Tim Keller. 

In October 2025, a discussion took place between James R. Wood and Collin Hansen on Keller’s ministry, covering topics like cultural engagement, preaching, church planting, humility, gay marriage, and politics. Hansen, author of the 2023 biography of Keller, worked closely with him for years, helping to shape and run The Gospel Coalition, Keller’s brainchild for church renewal. Wood is an assistant professor of religion and theology at Redeemer University in Ontario and one of Keller’s thoughtful critics. 

In this wide-ranging interview, however, they barely mention a major ingredient of Keller’s secret sauce: his voracious reading habit. Whether a critic or a fan, one cannot fully understand Keller’s impact without reckoning with the enormous foundation he laid in quiet study.

In Hansen’s biography of Keller, we learn that his first church in rural Hopewell, Virginia, did not have the budget to buy him books, so he asked for books as Christmas gifts. He would then spend the next year reading them. Many of these titles came from Banner of Truth, a publishing house that specializes in Puritan texts. Keller’s reading included tomes like “The Works of Jonathan Edwards.” Reaching nearly 2,000 pages, this two-volume publication’s famously-thin page margins and miniscule font size risk sending the reader to the optometrist. In the October interview, Hansen mentions Keller’s thorough reading of Martyn Lloyd-Jones and George Whitefield, both Banner of Truth staples.

In fact, Keller never missed a moment to read. In his biography, Hansen tells us that in New York City Keller had a habit of “walking down the street reading an open book,” and that he would “drive around Hopewell with a Puritan paperback from Banner of Truth resting on his steering wheel.” Keller’s study was constant.

As the Christian leaders of the baby boomer generation pass away, who will rise to take their place?

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