J.I. Packer Quotes

       J.I. Packer
       1926-
      
       James Innell Packer is a British-born Canadian Christian theologian in the low church Anglican tradition. He currently serves as the Board of Governors' Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is considered one of the most influential evangelicals in North America.
      
       Born in Gloucester, England, Packer won a scholarship to Oxford University. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, obtaining the degrees of Bachelor of Arts (1948), Master of Arts (1952), and Doctor of Philosophy (1955).
      
       It was as a student at Oxford that he first heard lectures from C. S. Lewis, whose teachings would (though he never knew Lewis personally) become a major influence in his life. In a meeting of the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, Packer committed his life to Christian service.
      
       Packer served as general editor for the English Standard Version, an Evangelical revision of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

Wisdom is the power to see and the inclination to choose the best and highest goal, together with the surest means of attaining it.     Topics: Achievement, Wisdom, Goals Our business is to present the Christian faith clothed in modern terms, not to propagate modern thought clothed in Christian terms... Confusion here is fatal.     Topics: Christianity It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the most profound unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. God became man; Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as this truth of the incarnation.     Topics: Christmas The Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as this truth of the Incarnation.     Topics: Christmas     Source: Christian Reader, v. 33, n. 6. The Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity--hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory--because at the Father's will Jesus became poor, and was born in a stable so that thirty years later He might hang on a cross.     Topics: Christmas Doctrinal preaching certainly bores the hypocrites; but it is only doctrinal preaching that will save Christ's sheep.     Topics: Doctrine, Preaching The unceasing activity of the Creator, whereby in overflowing bounty and goodwill, He upholds His creatures in ordered existence, guides and governs all events, circumstances, and free acts of angels and men, and directs everything to its appointed goal, for His own glory.     Topics: Goals, Circumstances, Creation Nothing can alter the character of God. In the course of a human life, tastes and outlook and temper may change radically: a kin, equable man may turn bitter and crotchety: a man of good-will may grow cynical and callous. But nothing of this sort happens to the Creator.     Topics: God, Bitterness Knowing God is more than knowing about Him; it is a matter of dealing with Him as He opens up to you, and being dealt with by Him as He takes knowledge of you. Knowing about Him is a necessary precondition of trusting in Him, but the width of our knowledge about Him is no gauge of our knowledge of Him.     Topics: God The character of God is today, and always will be, exactly what it was in Bible times. God is forever what at that moment, three thousand years ago, He told Moses that He was.     Topics: God What were we made for? To know God. What aim should we have in life? To know God. What is the eternal life that Jesus gives? To know God. What is the best thing in life? To know God. What in humans gives God most pleasure? Knowledge of himself.     Topics: God, Eternal Life I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him, because He first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, One who loves me; and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted for me, and no moment, therefore, when His care falters.     Topics: Grace