Tim Keller | May 1, 2005
When you embrace God by faith two things come into your life: a transforming power and a deep tension. It’s a duality. If you try to resolve the deep tension, you lose the transforming power.
The writer of Hebrews says the great believers in history were resident aliens on earth. In Greco-Roman society, a resident alien was a permanent resident but not a citizen. That is the tension that anyone who wants the transforming power of God must live with.
If we want to understand the message, we need to see four things we learn in this passage: 1) there are two cities, 2) each city has a conflict with the other, 3) only one city is for the other, and 4) how to become citizens of the one city that’s for the other.
This Month's Featured Book
In The Prodigal God, Tim Keller examines the way Jesus presents the parable to speak both to those who run from God and to those who try to earn his love by being good. It reveals the heart of the gospel—a message of hope for both the rebellious younger brother and the judgmental older brother, and an invitation for all to experience God’s grace.