Inspirational Quotes by J.I. Packer
“We are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God chose you [selection] from the beginning [before creation] to be saved [the appointed end], through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth [the appointed means]” (2 Thess 2:13 RSV).”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“Meanwhile, we ought not to hesitate to trust his wisdom, even when he leaves us in the dark.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“Most of us live in a dream world, with our heads in the clouds and our feet off the ground; we never see the world, and our lives in it, as they really are. This deep-seated, sin-bred unrealism is one reason why there is so little wisdom among us—even the soundest and most orthodox of us. It takes more than sound doctrine to cure us of unrealism. There is, however, one book in Scripture that is expressly designed to turn us into realists, and that is the book of Ecclesiastes.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“To an age which has unashamedly sold itself to the gods of greed, pride, sex and self-will, the church mumbles on about God’s kindness but says virtually nothing about his judgment.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“Many have said what pride they felt in rendering personal service to Sir Winston Churchill during World War II. How much more should it be a matter of pride and glorying to know and serve the Lord of heaven and earth!”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the Deity.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“The reason why the Bible spends so much of its time reiterating that God is a strong rock, a firm defense, and a sure refuge and help for the weak, is that God spends so much of his time bringing home to us that we are weak, both mentally and morally, and dare not trust ourselves to find, or to follow, the right road.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“The need for us is to “wait upon the LORD” in meditations on his majesty, till we find our strength renewed through the writing of these things upon our hearts.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“simple Bible reader and sermon hearer who is full of the Holy Spirit will develop a far deeper acquaintance with his God and Savior than a more learned scholar who is content with being theologically”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“Positively, it is a summons to us to recognize that God the Creator is transcendent, mysterious and inscrutable, beyond the range of any imagining or philosophical guesswork of which we are capable-and hence a summons to us to humble ourselves, to listen”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“Third, knowing God is a matter of grace. It is a relationship in which the initiative throughout is with God—as it must be, since God is so completely above us and we have so completely forfeited all claim on his favor by our sins.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“We are familiar with the thought that our bodies are like machines, needing the right routine of food, rest and exercise if they are to run efficiently, and liable, if filled up with the wrong fuel—alcohol, drugs, poison—to lose their power of healthy functioning and ultimately to “seize up” entirely in physical death. What we are, perhaps, slower to grasp is that God wishes us to think of our souls in a similar way. As rational persons, we were made to bear God’s moral image—that is, our souls were made to “run” on the practice of worship, law-keeping, truthfulness, honesty, discipline, self-control, and service to God and our fellows. If we abandon these practices, not only do we incur guilt before God; we also progressively destroy our own souls. Conscience atrophies, the sense of shame dries up, one’s capacity for truthfulness, loyalty and honesty is eaten away, one’s character disintegrates. One not only becomes desperately miserable; one is steadily being dehumanized. This is one aspect of spiritual death. Richard Baxter was right to formulate the alternatives as “A Saint—or a Brute”: that, ultimately, is the only choice, and everyone, sooner or later, consciously or unconsciously opts for one or the other.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“In our life: Do we apply the authority of the Bible and live by the Bible, whatever anyone may say against it, recognizing that God’s Word cannot but be true, and that what God has said he certainly means, and he will stand behind it? If not, we dishonor the Holy Spirit, who gave us the Bible.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“We cannot work these thoughts out here, but merely to mention them is enough to show how much it means to know not merely that we know God, but that he knows us.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“For the doctrine of justification by faith is like Atlas: it bears a world on its shoulders, the entire evangelical knowledge of saving grace. The doctrines of election, of effectual calling, regeneration, and repentance, of adoption, of prayer, of the church, the ministry, and the sacraments, have all to be interpreted and understood in the light of justification by faith. …when justification falls, all true knowledge of the grace of God in human life fall with it, and then, as Luther said, the church itself falls… When Atlas falls, everything that rested on his shoulders comes crashing down too.”
“J.I. Packer writes, “It [knowing God] is the most practical project anyone can engage in. Knowing about God is crucially important for living our lives.” Packer continues, “Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through this life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you.”
“If the only way to be saved is to be chosen, then who cares if we tell people about Jesus anyway?”
“Men who know their God are before anything else men who pray, and the first point where their zeal and energy for God's glory come to expression is in their prayers.”
“God as a helpless baby, he could only lie, stare, wriggle, make noises. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets!”
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Dr. Packer, the Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology at Regent College, was hailed by TIME as “a doctrinal Solomon” among Protestants. “Mediating debates on everything from a particular Bible translation to the acceptability of free-flowing Pentecostal spirituality, Packer helps unify a community [evange licalism] that could easily fall victim to its internal tensions.”
Knowing God, Dr. Packer’s seminal 1973 work, was lauded as a book which articulated shared beliefs for members of diverse denominations; the TIME profile quotes Michael Cromartie of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington as saying, “conservative Methodists and Presbyterians and Baptists could all look to [Knowing God] and say, ‘This sums it all up for us.’”
In a similar tribute to Dr. Packer almost ten years ago, American theologian Mark Noll wrote in Christianity Today that, “Packer’s ability to address immensely important subjects in crisp, succinct sentences is one of the reasons why, both as an author and speaker, he has played such an important role among American evangelicals for four decades.”
For over 25 years Regent College students have been privileged to study under Dr. Packer’s clear and lucid teaching, and our faculty, staff and students celebrate the international recognition he rightly receives as a leading Christian thinker and teacher.
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