MattPerman.com

  • Contact
  • About
  • Speaking
  • Books
  • Video Highlights
  • Resources
You are here: Home / 3 Christian Living / b Church and Ministry / Gospel Movements / Tim Keller on Revival

Tim Keller on Revival

March 16, 2011 by mattperman

Tim Keller has a good post seeking to address the question: How do seasons of revival come?

After discussing briefly whether we can have any influence at all over whether revival happens, he then carefully discusses “some factors that, when present, often become associated with revival by God’s blessing.” He mentions four from William Sprague’s Lectures on Revival of Religion:

  1. Extraordinary prayer
  2. A recovery of the gospel of grace
  3. Renewed individuals
  4. The use of the gospel on the heart in counseling

Keller points out that Sprague “studied under both Timothy Dwight, Edwards’ grandson, at Yale and also Archibald Alexander at Princeton” and that “the Princetonians – the Alexanders, Samuel Miller, and Charles Hodge – did a good job of combining the basics of revivalism with a healthy emphasis on doctrine and the importance of the church.”

He then adds two more observations:

First, “revivals occur mainly through the ordinary, ‘instituted means of grace’ – preaching, pastoring, worship, prayer. It is a mistake to identify some specific programmatic method (e.g. Billy Graham-like mass evangelism) too closely with revivals.”

And, second, after mentioning Whitfield and Wesleys “new method” of open air preaching, he adds: “I’m ready to say that creativity might be one of the marks of revival, because so often some new way of communicating the gospel has been part of the mix that God used to bring a mighty revival.” Very interesting.

Read the whole thing.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • LinkedIn
  • Evernote

Related

Filed Under: Gospel Movements

Feedback to the Author

  • If you would like a response, please include your email address. While I unfortunately cannot respond to everything, I will do my best.
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

About Matt Perman

 

I am the director of career development at The King’s College NYC, co-founder of What’s Best Next, and the author of What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done. This is my personal website where I blog on four of my favorite topics: theology, apologetics, culture, and living in New York City.

Learn more.

Books

See all of my books and publications.

Follow

Twitter | Facebook

Posts by Date

Posts by Topic

Search Whatsbestnext.com

Copyright © 2025 - What's Best Next. All Rights Reserved. Contact Us.