By J. I. Packer

So I read this book while on vacation. It’s one of many books that someone recommended to me years ago and I put on the shelf. I certainly regret that decision.

Now I realize I’m a nerd and I recommend books to everyone. It’s annoying and I know it. I’m just that guy and, well, I’ve accepted and embraced it. So I know many of you will read this post and be tempted to shrug and say, “There he goes again.” And you’ll be right, sort of, but this time is different.

While I understand that my proclivity (big word inserted to confuse you and weaken your defenses) for this type of behavior makes me something like ‘the boy who cried wolf,’ please believe me when I say this time is different. Oh I know, you’ve heard it all before, but I mean it more this time. Seriously, please listen to me.

BUY THIS BOOK!

And after purchasing it, read it carefully and thoughtfully. Grab a pen, sit in a quiet place, and read. Read it slowly. Read a little each day. Underline as you read. Think as you read. Meditate on what you read. Make notes as you read. Ask questions as you read. Digest as you read. Learn as you read.

Why do I care so much? Because I agree with the conviction that led Packer to write.

“The conviction behind this book is that ignorance of God – ignorance both of his ways and of the practice of communion with him – lies at the root of much of the church’s weakness today” (12).

I would apply his introductory comments even more directly adding that this ‘ignorance’ is at the root of most Christians’ weakness today. We don’t know God. Therefore, we don’t walk with God. Therefore, we don’t live for God. Therefore, we don’t glorify God.

I’ll let Packer make his own case for this work (the emphasis added through the italics is mine).

“Knowing about God is crucially important for the living of our lives. . . . Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul” (19).

“Meditation is the activity of calling to mind, and thinking over, and dwelling on, and applying to oneself, the various things that one knows about the works and ways and purposes and promises of God. . . . Its purpose is to clear one’s mental and spiritual vision of God, and to let his truth make its full and proper impact on one’s mind and heart. . . . God help us, then, to put our knowledge about God to this use, that we may all in truth ‘know the Lord’” (23).

From one of the best books of our generation by one of the great theologians of our generation, the following quote reveals why this 30-year-old book is still so widely read and appreciated.

“It is not for us to imagine that we can prove the truth of Christianity by our arguments; nobody can prove the truth of Christianity except the Holy Spirit, by his own almighty work of renewing the blinded heart. It is the sovereign prerogative of Christ’s Spirit to convince men’s consciences of the truth of Christ’s gospel; and Christ’s human witnesses must learn to ground their hopes of success not on clever presentation of the truth by man, but on the powerful demonstration of the truth by the Spirit.”

J.I. Packer, Knowing God, 71

Packer’s words about God’s sovereignty in salvation actually compel me to share the gospel every time I read them for at least two reasons.

First, God’s sovereignty eases the pressure I feel to “convert” people. I find great comfort in remembering and pondering “the sovereign prerogative of Christ’s Spirit” to save. I share and God saves.

Second, God’s sovereignty gives me great confidence. I am so thankful a person’s salvation is NOT dependent on my cleverness or ability to prove truth of the gospel. Again, I share and God saves.

by Neil Postman

First published in 1985 Amusing Ourselves to Death still presents remarkably relevant and helpful social commentary. Nearly 25 years after he wrote, Postman’s words seem more like prophecies than observations.

His work centers on the shift from print to television as the primary medium for receiving public information. He then investigates the effects of this shift, which happened during the last half of the 20^th century, on American culture.

Ultimately, he argues that because of this shift “the content of much of our public discourse has become dangerous nonsense.” In fact, public conversation about topics like “politics, religion, news, athletics, education, and commerce” has descended to foolishness and drivel.

When the printing press delivered the primary content of cultural communication to the people, these “conversations” were driven by coherent, serious, and rational thought. Now that television has replaced printed words as the primary deliverer of this information, “all public discourse increasingly takes the form of entertainment.” Thus, amusement and triviality replace the coherent, serious, and rational.

Please don’t dismiss this word as just another caution about the enormous amount of junk on television. While that is much needed, this warning is far more. Postman warned, and I believe rightfully so, that television as a deliverer of information will turn all serious matters into junk.

This issue is important to Christians for at least two reasons. First, many of us make decisions about topics of great cultural significance (i.e. our vote in an election, our support for a particular public policy, our idea of quality education, our definition of justice, etc.) on the basis of what we hear and see on television. In other words, we are formulating our worldview using information that is designed and delivered for one purpose: entertainment.

Second, this shift is driving many churches and Christians toward a television-style, entertainment-driven mindset concerning their religion. Our thirst for amusement knows no boundaries and we certainly don’t limit them at the point of our faith.

Think carefully for a moment about whether your faith (or the dominant expressions of it) is defined more by coherent, serious thoughts or entertainment.

From my good friend Curt, the following is a great quote from T. H. L. Parker’s biography of John Calvin.

Before you read it may be helpful to know…

• Calvin was a sixteenth century theologian.
• The quote is Parker’s summary of Calvin’s view about man’s dependence on the Bible as our source of ultimate knowledge of God.
• The emphasis added through the italics is mine.
• Sorry the quote is so long, but stick with it… it’s really rich.

“For all his capabilities, man is a puzzled, groping creature, surrounded by that which is mysterious to him. He not only does not understand God, nor does he understand the world in which he lives, but he does not even understand himself-from where he has come, why he lives, or to where he goes. If help does not come to him from without, he will never know God or find His kingdom.

But God, in His loving concern for man, reaches right to him, where he is wandering imprisoned in the labyrinth, and gives him the guidance of the Holy Scriptures, which are like a thread, leading him through this maze of ignorance to the knowledge of God. “The light of the Divine countenance, which the Apostle himself says ‘no man can approach unto,’ is like an inexplicable labyrinth to us, unless we are directed by the thread of the Word.”

The basis of Calvin’s theology, therefore, is the belief that through the Bible alone can God be known in His wholeness as the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord of the world. He is not so discernible in any other place-in the creation, or in man’s conscience, or in the course of history and experience. And since, if we are to know of God, we must go to the place where He is to be found, it is to the Scriptures that we must go, and there we shall find Him as He is. . . . The Scriptures are not man’s guesses about the mystery of God, nor are they the conclusions that men have drawn from certain data at their disposal. On the contrary, they are the unveiling of the mystery of God by God Himself-God’s gracious revelation of Himself to ignorant and sinful men. Far from being a stage, even the last stage, on man’s quest for the well at the world’s end, the Bible is the place where God comes from above and beyond the world to show Himself to His people.”

From T. H. L. Parker’s, Portrait of Calvin, 1954, 62.

What is the foundation for your knowledge about God? Are you leaning on your own ideas about God to form your understanding of Him? Or are you basing your understanding of Him on what He has said about Himself in the Bible?

One way is fatally flawed. The other way leads to life. So be careful.