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 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.