'Please Do Pray': Tim Keller Gives Health Update on New Cancerous 'Lump'

Christian author and New York City-based preacher Tim Keller has shared a new health update to social media, revealing doctors had removed a cancerous lump last month. 

Keller, the founder of Redeemer Presbyterian Church and City to City, has been battling pancreatic cancer for a little over a year.  

"Friends, Thank you so much for your continued prayers for my cancer treatment," Keller wrote. "We are well aware of your prayers and their power in holding us up to God and holding us together as we navigate treatment, isolation, and covid."

"Let me give you a short update in answer to your inquiries of how things are going," he continued. 

"After surgery last May, I was granted a 'chemo holiday' (missing one treatment) and was able to get out of town with my family for several weeks," the 70-year-old New York Times bestselling author explained. "On August 23 I had a scan and the primary tumor had not progressed. However, a mystery lump underneath the May surgical scar was removed and proved to be cancerous."

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— Timothy Keller (@timkellernyc) September 5, 2021

Continuing the update in a second tweet, Keller wrote, "Just to be safe, my doctor has increased my chemotherapy back to the level it was before, which has more side-effects, but we hope, more therapeutic effects. Pancreatic cancer is able to learn how to evade medication, so it is only God's power that we look for complete healing."

"Please do pray that I will be able to fulfill my teaching and other obligations, and that the neuropathy and other side effects will be minimal while the medication will be effective against the cancer, and that we will run the race God has set before us with joy," he asked. 

As CBN's Faithwire reported, Keller previously battled thyroid cancer. In a 2008 interview with First Things, he said that experience helped him eliminate doubts he had about God — uncertainties he didn't even realize were there.

In fact, that experience is part of what inspired his book, The Reason for God, a primer for anyone seeking to understand how belief in God is a logical and rational hope.

"It was a wonderful experience," Keller said at the time. "It was both an intellectual and emotional experience: You're facing death, you're not sure you're going to get over the cancer. And the rigorous intellectual process of going through all the alternative explanations for how the Christian Church started. Except the resurrection, none of them are even tenable. It was quite an experience."

"So in a way, I was working on a doubt and it was a wonderful experience, and I took it down," he continued. "Maybe there is a deeper level of doubt that I don't even know is there yet. So it's for you and your ability to be a good apologist."

Please continue to pray for Tim Keller and his family.

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