Carson comments on his good friend's Keller's preaching style in (Time 34:35 to 36:09) of
Introduction to Systematic Theology:
...one of the things that Tim Keller is constantly doing: (well people have different strengths of course; people have different priorities in their preaching). There are some preachers who instantly gravitate toward biblical theology and trace out the bible story lines, draw the thing out and tie together with a nice bow. And you see the whole thing put together beautifully and you think, this is fantastic! Isn't God wonderful?
That's not what Tim Keller does.
What Tim Keller does is focus on something central in the text that he's looking, at and then masses it within the structure of biblical thought on that theme in order to address the present day age. He is always thinking synthetically and apologetically.
I'm not saying that's a bad way to preach, I'm saying that's not the only way to preach. One of the things that happens in the gospel coalition is amongst speakers both men and women who are given the responsibility to expound on the word of God, we look for people who try to handle the word well, who have diversities of style and emphases and so on.
The only reason I'm mentioning Tim is not because he is necessarily the best or the worst, but because he gravitates in his preaching toward moving from the text to the big synthesis to the application very quickly, and then spends alot of his time there. You see? That's characteristic of the way he thinks and preaches. That's one of the better functions of systematic theology.
