Knowing about him is a necessary precondition of trusting in him (‘how could they have faith in one they had never heard of?’ ), but the width of our knowledge about him is no gauge of the depth of our knowledge of him (pp. 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. John 17:3: “ And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” He talks about what it means to know God, how knowing Him differs from knowing others, the different analogies the Scriptures use to illustrate our relationship to Him.
His ultimate concern was with the knowledge and service of the great God whose truth he sought to understand (pp. The psalmist was interested in truth and orthodoxy, in biblical teaching and theology, not as ends in themselves, but as means to the further ends of life and godliness. We need to guard our hearts against such an attitude, and pray to be kept from it (p. To be preoccupied with getting theological knowledge as an end in itself, to approach Bible study with no higher a motive than a desire to know all the answers, is the direct route to a state of self-satisfied self-deception. Packer begins with the virtues of studying about God as well as the warning not to stop with just the academics, but to use what we learn to get to know God personally. We are not all God’s children: we become His when we believe on Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Packer says the most basic definition of a Christian is that he or she is a person who has God as Father.
Packer, I still wanted to do a general review, partly for those who did not want to keep up with the weekly readings, and partly for me to have a general review to link back to.Įven though this book has been considered a classic and has been in print for over 40 years, somehow I had never gotten around to reading it before, though I had heard of it and wanted to.
Even though I’ve been posting weekly summaries of my reading from Knowing God by J.
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