Tim Keller’s new book The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God is out today. Christianity Today released an interview between he and Karen Prior that is worth noting. Among the things mentioned, a comment about the relationship between commitment and freedom stood out, as it relates to things beyond marriage. Keller was asked, “Why do you believe that the commitment of marriage is viewed as largely anything but freeing today?” He replied:
Our culture pits the two against each other. The culture says you have to be free from any obligation to really be free. The modern view of freedom is freedom from. It’s negative: freedom from any obligation, freedom from anybody telling me how I have to live my life. The biblical view is a richer view of freedom. It’s the freedom of—the freedom of joy, the freedom of realizing what I was designed to be.
If you don’t bind yourself to practice the piano for eight hours a day for ten years, you’ll never know the freedom of being able to sit down and express yourself through playing beautiful music. I don’t have that freedom. It’s very clear that to be able to do so is a freeing thing for people, with the diminishment of choice. And since freedom now is defined as all options, the power of choice, that’s freedom from. I don’t think ancient people saw these things as contradictions, but modern people do.
Read the whole article.
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