J I Packer on Stunted Christian Character in 21st Century

Back in 1999, looking towards the 21st century, Christian teacher, J I Packer, said... 

"Children are growing up without any knowledge of the Bible or its morality. Sometimes they are taught the Gospel but not the law. They are not being raised in stable, nurturing families. As a result, the middle-aged adults of the next century will have grown bodies but stunted characters. They will be quite infantile in their emotional lives and incapable of steady commitments."

[Source: http://rq.rts.edu/summer99/qa.html]

J I Packer on the "Christmas Spirit"

The shops are telling us Christmas is getting closer, and I just read these helpful and challenging words by one of my favourite Christian writers, J I Packer... talking about the "Christmas Spirit"...

"... the phrase should in fact carry a tremendous weight of meaning. It ought to mean the reproducing in human lives of the temper of him who for our sakes became poor at the first Christmas. And the Christmas spirit itself ought to be the mark of every Christian all the year round.

"It is our shame and disgrace today that so many Christians--I will be more specific: so many of the soundest and most orthodox Christians--go through this world in the spirit of the priest and the Levite in our Lord’s parable, seeing human needs all around them, but (after a pious wish, and perhaps a prayer, that God might meet those needs) averting their eyes and passing by on the other side. That is not the Christmas spirit. Nor is it the spirit of those Christians--alas, they are many--whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and bringing up their children in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the sub-middle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves. 

"The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor--spending and being spent--to enrich their fellow humans, giving time, trouble, care and concern, to do good to others--and not just their own friends--in whatever way there seems need. 

"There are not as many who show this spirit as there should be."

May God enable us to be what we should be...

[Source: Knowing God]

J I Packer on Calvinistic Determination

Calvin and Calvinism are often linked with determinism. Well here is a quote by J I Packer on the determination (rather than determinism) of Calvinism in the persistence of Protestantism...

“Without [Calvin], pure Protestantism might not have survived beyond the middle of the seventeenth century, for it is simple truth that the only Protestants who would stand and fight, to the last ditch if necessary, against Roman and Erastian pressures, were the Calvinists.”

(Source: "John Calvin and Reformed Europe" in Honouring the People of God: The Collected Shorter Writings of J. I. Packer Volume 4, p14)

J I Packer on Preaching: Knowing Notions or Knowing God?

"The first requirement for authoritative, perceptive communication of the word of God is that you yourself should be experiencing the power of it. The Puritan John Owen said, 'A man only preaches that sermon well which first preaches itself in his own soul.' He was profoundly right, I would verify that from my own ministry... If we are not ourselves living in and under the Scriptures, those who hear us speak on fellowship with God will soon realize that we do not know what we are talking about... The quantity of theological notions in one's mind, even correct notions, doesn't say anything about one's relationship with God. The fact that one knows a lot of theology doesn't mean that one's relationship with God is right or is going to be right. The two things are quite distinct... My times with the Bible, like those of all pastoral leaders, indeed all Christians, are meant to be times for knowing God."
-- J I Packer, Knowing Notions or Knowing God

[Knowing Notions or Knowing God is from The Collected Shorter Writings of J. I. Packer: Volume 3: Honouring the Written Word of God by J. I. Packer (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1999), pp. 241-246.  Knowing Notions or Knowing God was originally published in Pastoral Renewal 6.9 (March, 1982), pp. 65-68.]

J I Packer and Mistakes We Make in Seeking God's Guidance

I'd have to say that J I Packer is my long-time favourite Christian writer and teacher. Always one of the first people I'll check with if I can. And one of his most classic books I've had for a long time, and known about for longer, is Knowing God. But of course, I've never read it cover to cover :O! So today I was doing some more dipping into it, and read some of the stuff about discerning God's will, or getting guidance from God. I'm sure I've never read it before, but even more certainly there is great stuff to read there, lots of sound wisdom. Here is a section he wrote about "Six Common Pitfalls", or mistakes we often make as Christians, when trying to seek and follow God's will for our lives...

First, unwillingness to think. It is false piety, super-super-naturalism of an unhealthy and pernicious sort, that demands inward impressions that have no rational base, and declines to heed the constant biblical summons to ‘consider’. God made us thinking beings, and He guides our minds as in His presence we think things out – not otherwise. ‘O that they were wise…that they would consider…’ (Deuteronomy 32:29).

Second, unwillingness to think ahead, and weigh the long-term consequences of alternative courses of action. ’Think ahead’ is part of the divine rule of life no less than of the human rule of the road. Often we can only see what is wise and right (and what is foolish and wrong) as we dwell on its long-term issues. ‘O, that they were wise…that they would consider their latter end.’ 

Third, unwillingness to take advice. Scripture is emphatic on the need for this. ’The way of the foolish is right in his own eyes; but he that is wise hearkeneth unto counsel’ (Proverbs 12:15, RV). It is a sign of conceit and immaturity to dispense with taking advice in major decisions. There are always people who know the Bible, human nature, and our own gifts and limitations, better than we do, and even if we cannot finally accept their advice, nothing but good will come to us from carefully weighing what they say. 

Fourth, unwillingness to suspect oneself. We dislike being realistic with ourselves, and we do not know ourselves at all well; we can recognise rationalisations in others and quite overlook them in ourselves. ‘Feelings’ with an ego-boosting, or escapist, or self-indulging, or self-aggrandising base, must be detected and discredited, not mistaken for guidance. This is particularly true of sexual, or sexually conditioned, feelings. As a biologist-theologian has written: 

The joy and general sense of well-being that often (but not always) goes with being ‘in love’ can easily silence conscience and inhibit critical thinking. How often people say that they ‘feel led’ to get married (and probably they will say ‘the Lord has so clearly guided’), when all they are really describing is a particularly novel state of endocrine balance which makes them feel extremely sanguine and happy (O. R. Barclay, Guidance, p. 29). 

We need to ask ourselves why we ‘feel’ a particular course to be right, and make ourselves give reasons – and we shall be wise to lay the case before someone else whose judgment we trust, to give his verdict on our reasons. We need also to keep praying, ‘Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting’ (Psalm 139:23f.). We can never distrust ourselves too much. 

Fifth, unwillingness to discount personal magnetism. Those who have not been made deeply aware of pride and self-deception in themselves cannot always detect these things in others, and this has from time to time made it possible for well-meaning but deluded men with a flair for self-dramatisation to gain alarming domination over the minds and consciences of others, who fall under their spell and decline to judge them by ordinary standards. And even when a gifted and magnetic man is aware of the danger and tries to avoid it, he is not always able to stop Christian people treating him as an angel, or a prophet, construing his words as guidance for themselves, and blindly following his lead. But this is not the way to be led by God. Outstanding men are not, indeed, necessarily wrong, but they are not necessarily right, either! They, and their views, must be respected, but may not be idolised. ‘Prove (test) all things; hold fast that which is good’ (1 Thessalonians 5:12). 

Sixth, unwillingness to wait. ‘Wait on the Lord’ is a constant refrain in the Psalms, and it is a necessary word, for God often keeps us waiting. He is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not His way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time. When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait on God. When action is needed, light will come. 

[Source: Knowing God with Study Guide (1993), pp269-271.] 

J I Packer on the Need to Know about Sin

Striking quote by J I Packer on the importance of understanding sin...

The subject of sin is vital knowledge. To say that our first need in life is to learn about sin may sound strange, but in the sense intended it is profoundly true. If you have not learned about sin, you cannot understand yourself, or your fellow-men, or the world you live in, or the Christian faith. And you will not be able to make head or tail of the Bible. For the Bible is an exposition of God's answer to the problem of human sin, and unless you have that problem clearly before you, you will keep missing the point of what it says. Apart from the first two chapters of Genesis, which set the stage, the real subject of every chapter of the Bible is what God does about our sins. Lose sight of this theme, and you lose your way in the Bible at once. With that, the love of God, the meaning of salvation, and the message of the gospel, will all become closed books to you; you may still talk of these things, but you will no longer know what you are talking about.
[from God's Words (1981; also 18 Words)]

J I Packer on the Bible as God's Torah or Law

Another quote from J I Packer's book Truth & Power: The Place of Scripture in the Christian Life (1996)...

It needs to be said, before we move on, that living by biblical torah can be costly. Society will press Christians to do things that God's law forbids and to omit things that God's law requires. Christian nonconformity to others' ways will be felt as an insult and a threat. In the early centuries Christians were persecuted throughout the Roman Empire because they would not join in emperor worship. Persecution is rife today in Muslim and Marxist countries where toleration is not part of the culture and Christians are seen as subversive of national goals. In the West, Christian physicians who will not do abortions are marginalized in their own profession, and in many circles Christians who still see homosexual practice as sin are, to say the least, disliked. Christians, however, must obey God rather then humans when there is a clash (see Acts 4:19; 5:29), and if that means trouble, so be it: we have to learn to commit our cause to God and stand steady, seeing the situation as a testing of our faith. But living by Scripture as one's law in this way can cost a great deal, and we must face that fact realistically.

Further, it needs to be said that living by biblical torah can be disturbing. It has been said that either the Bible will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from the Bible. What is meant is that the Bible will jolt us to the roots of our being by zeroing in on our weaknesses, shortcomings, vices, disobediences and neglects and will sensitize our consciences to the displeasure of God and the imperative need to make changes. At such times we will find that the temptation to stop taking the Bible seriously will be very strong indeed.

... Also it needs to be said that living by biblical torah can be very humbling. Pride is the sinful infection of all our hearts, and to a degree we are all proud of our opinions. But if, as we let Scripture instruct us, we find it teaching something different from what we have hitherto assumed and contradicting what, as we say, we "like to think" (ominous phrase!), then it is so much the worse for our former thoughts, and we have to change our minds. To admit that you were wrong can be painful, but those who take Scripture as law for their lives must be prepared for this.

(Packer in this book offers seven ways to think of the Bible as we approach it: A Library, A Landscape, A Letter, A Listening Post, A Law, A Light, A Lifeline. Packer describes torah as "affectionate instruction on behaviour as from a father to his family, given in the expectation that the children will take it to heart and faithfully obey their father's directives".)

J I Packer on knowing God's will in life

From J I Packer's book Truth & Power: The Place of Scripture in the Christian Life...

... a Christian can always find in the Bible guidance as to the next step in obedience, whatever perplexities his or her life situation may currently present. Walking by the light of Scripture is not like walking by daylight, any more than shining your flashlight is like the rising of the sun. Beyond the little circle of vision that your flashlight gives you, the darkness remains, and it is through this continuing darkness that you travel. You are regularly in the dark, in the everyday slang sense, unable to find meaning in the things that happen around you. But Scripture enables you to see each next step that you must take, so on you are able to go. All of us, I am bold to say, walk through life with a quiverful of unanswered questions about the ways of God. Why this? Why that? What is really going on here? We don't know, for God does not tell us. All he tells us, as we consult his Word, is how to cope Christianly with this and that as it comes and to get on with our life of worship and service through it all.

J I Packer on Christian Fellowship

Great quote from J I Packer on the Biblical concept of fellowship:

A body in which the blood does not circulate well is always below par, and fellowship corresponds to the circulation of the blood in the body of Christ. The church gains strength through fellowship, and loses strength without it... Christians today need fellowship. All Christians of every age do. None is spiritually self-sufficient; God does not make us so. Without fellowship, whether we are conscious of this or not, we shall be and remain feeble Christians. This is a law of the spiritual life.

(from God's Words, also 18 Words)

J I Packer on Holiness and Materialism

Neat quote by J I Packer from the chapter on "Holiness and Sanctification" in his book, God's Words...

A holy person's life will not centre on things: instead, a certain frugality will mark it, an eschewing of luxury and display, a sense of stewardship of all possessions, and a readiness to let them go if need be for the Lord's sake. Holy people do not undervalue this world's good things, as if God did not make or provide them (Manicheism, the belief that material things are bad, is no part of holiness), but they refuse to be enslaved to them. Nor do they squint sideways to compare their material showing with that of others; they know that keeping up with the Joneses is not holiness, even if Jones goes to their church or is in orbit in some Christian celebrity circuit. The holy person lives free from the passion for possessions, just as he does from other forms of self-seeking and self-indulgence. His treasure is with God, and his heart too (cf. Mt. 6:19-21). The cheerfulness of his disregard of the world's scale of values, and the straight-forward, single-minded, spontaneous ardour of his love for God may make him somewhat unnerving company, though if so it is because he is so much more honest and human than we who watch him, not because he is odd and we are normal.

Packer on Inerrancy and Hermeneutics

I was reading an article by J. I. Packer called "Encountering Present-Day Views of Scripture" (originally from a 1978 publication), in the book Honouring the Written Word of God: Collected Shorter Writings of J. I. Packer Volume 3. I thought this quote was good regarding a common malpractice in hermeneutics because of a view of inerrancy. Genesis 1 being a particular flashpoint in relation to the creation-evolution/age-of-the-earth debates, as also OT prophecy as related to millenial views and the prospects of ethnic Israel and Judaism. If you don't read Scripture the same way as someone else, there can be too quick a jump to a charge or suspicion of doubting the trustworthiness, authority, or inerrancy of the Scriptures. Anyhow, here is the quote:

A warning should perhaps be voiced here against the psychological trap (for it is psychological, a matter of falsely associated feelings, rather than logical, a formal mistake in inference) of supposing that the confession of inerrancy involves a commitment to treat all narrative and predictive passages in Scripture as if they were written according to the conventions that would apply to ordinary English prose used today for these purposes, rather than the conventions of their own age and literary genre. Put thus, the mistake sounds too silly for anyone to make, but in fact it is made frequently: hence Pinnock's complaint that not enough care is taken to attach the necessary hermeneutical qualifications to inerrancy as an idea. And one can see how the mistake happens: people feel, sincerely if confusedly, that the only natural, straightforward way to express their certainty that the contents of Scripture are contemporary in their application is to treat Scripture as contemporary in its literary form. So, for example, Genesis 1 is read as if it were answering the same questions as today's scientific textbooks aim to answer, and Genesis 2 and 3 are read as if they were at every point prosaic eyewitness narratives of what we would have seen if we had been there, ignoring the reasons for thinking that in these chapters "real events may be recorded in a highly symbolic manner," and books like Daniel, Zechariah, and Revelation are expounded in total disregard of the imaginative conventions of apocalyptic. But it does not follow that be-cause Scripture records matters of fact, therefore it does so in what we should call matter-of-fact language.

Packer on Eschatology

Eschatological is one of those words which gets used a lot, but IMO most of the time most people don't know what it really means :-) For me, I think it is only over the last few years that I have begun to get a proper handle on the significance of eschatology. Now I think it is of fundamental importance in better understanding the Scriptures, and God's purposes in Christ. Too often, in a man-centred way, we just think of eschatology in terms of what will eventually happen to me, in the future, as it relates to me: life after death, heaven and hell, bodily resurrection, last judgement when Christ returns. However, there is a bigger picture with eschatology, which has to do with the whole Biblically anticipated age to come. This age to come includes the list of things I just mentioned previously, but is also more expansive that that. And the real crunch point is that the age to come is not just future, but it has already and really begun in the coming of Christ. In Christ's resurrection, the new creation has already begun. And as we are born again of the Spirit, the new creation has already begun in us, yet still waiting for perfection and completion. So every Christian is an interface or intersection between this present evil age and the age to come, and all the Christians together (ie the church) are a preview of the new humanity of the age to come, constituted in Christ. It seems to me it is very important to understand both the 'now and not yet' as well as the ultimate goal or telos of eschatology, if we are to better understand the perspective and meaning of Scripture. For example, I think we often think about OT Israel being fulfilled in the NT church. Yet I think ultimately both Israel and the church are better understood as pointing to the ultimate reality of the new humanity of the kingdom of God in eternity, in the consummated age to come. The church is a better representation of the new creation than is Israel, but it is still not a perfect representation.

Anyhow, recently I read some J. I. Packer on eschatology, and he made some helpful comments I thought I would record here. They come from Honouring the Written Word of God (Paternoster, 1990), in the chapter entitled "The Challenge of Biblical Interpretation: Eschatology"...

Eschatology is the study of the last things, God's future, God's fulfillment of his purpose of perfecting his creation by eliminating from it the disorder brought into it by sin and reconstructing everything in its final perfect form. Further, the biblical presentation of this great theme is like an ellipse with two foci, a single oval figure with two points inside it each of which is just as central in its significance as the other. The two foci are global eschatology (which has to do with the future of our Lord Jesus Christ and this whole world) and personal eschatology (which has to do with the future of the individual Christian and the individual unbeliever). [p.200]
The perspective set forth in the New Testament is what is usually called inaugurated eschatology, that is, the belief that the kingdom of God is here and the powers of the kingdom are at work already. The gospel is the good news that heaven has already begun here on earth for those who are Christ's. The long expected king of Old Testament prophecy has come. [p.200]
Never underestimate the theological significance of eschatology. In the schools, very often eschatology has been the poor relation in the theology courses. Coming last it has often been, to speak frankly, skimped in teaching. Partly, I think, this is because professors have not always known what to say. In addition, everyone who works in the classroom knows things often take longer to teach than you anticipate, so that the final bit of any course nearly always gets skimped. That's universal teaching experience. But it is a very sad thing that eschatology should ever be skimped because, as you can already see, it is a matter of enormous importance, very much a part of the glory of the gospel and very important for every Christian to understand... Eschatology is first the key to understanding the unity of the Bible... Eschatology is, further, the clue to understanding the nature of the Christian life. That life is essentially a life of hope, a life in which nothing is perfect yet but the hope of perfection is set before us... Third, eschatology is the key to understanding the shape of world history... The people of God have always been at the centre of world history... Finally, eschatology is supremely relevant for teaching the gospel in these days, considering what we are up against. On the one hand, there are utopian hopes, false hopes of different kinds offered by different people... On the other hand, we face a great deal of pessimistic hopelessness on the part of people who feel that they have seen through the false hopes of society and now have no hope at all... We need to speak loudly and clearly about the glory of the Christian hope. The world needs to hear that word from our lips. [pp.201-202]
the Bible is an Oriental book, and its testimony to the future is given in Oriental fashion. It is given in a pictorial, evocative, evaluative and imaginative way, rather than in the sort of reportorial prose which is informative in the way that a newspaper report of things is informative. This is the way that the Oriental mind, through which God gave us his Word, focuses and formulates and presents these coming realities. [p.203]
As wise persons preparing for vacations tidy up, pack their bags and get ready well in advance, so should we prepare for the meeting with Jesus that will close our lives in this world. Keep short accounts with God and 'live every day as if thy last', just as the hymn says. And while our life continues, let us work and pray for the advancing of the kingdom. When Christ appears publicly in this world, in what posture should he find the church? Praying for revival and planning world evangelism, surely. Let us see that when he comes for us, whether it is soon or late, those are the tasks in which he finds us engaged. [p.212]