Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J.I. Packer - Chapter 2

 Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God

by J.I. Packer

Chapter 2 - Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility

Read for free on the Internet Archive. 

Buy this book on Amazon. 

Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J.I. Packer - Chapter 1

Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God  

by J.I. Packer. 

Chapter 1 - Divine Sovereignty

Read Chapter 1 for free on Internet Archive. 

Buy this book on Amazon.

J. I. Packer: An Evangelical Life by Leland Ryken - Book Review

I freely admit that I don't normally have the endurance for listening to audio books that take more than 5 or 6 hours to listen to.  It isn't that I don't like to listen, but my audio book listening times are usually limited to my commute to and from work. Listening to a lengthy audio book in 15 minute segments tends to feel wearisome, but I found with J. I. Packer: An Evangelical Life by Leland Ryken that I was creating times to continue listening. About 1/3 of the way through the book, I found that I didn't want it to stop. I genuinely felt like I was getting to know J. I. Packer, so I wanted to know more of his story.

I wouldn't relate listening to this book like watching a movie. The first part of the book did tell his story, but it wasn't action-packed suspense. What kept me going was the character of this man. In many ways I began to relate to his decisions and understand why he might be doing what he was doing.

I especially appreciated Leland Ryken's approach to breaking up the biography the way he did. As I mentioned, he started by giving an overview of his life, but then he went the extra mile to attempt to reveal more of Packer's character by examining several areas of his life. There were portions that explored Packer as a Preacher and Packer as an author. There was also the examination of the many controversial topics that were an ongoing part of Packer's life as a public figure. Before I listened to this book, I didn't realize that Packer was an Anglican, but by the time I was done I found myself appreciating his ongoing efforts to bring doctrinal reformation to the church. He described himself as a crusader, and I can see and appreciate that fact.

This book was read by David Cochran Heath, who always does an outstanding job. If you are interested in learning more about J. I. Packer, then I would highly recommend this book.

This book will also be important to me because this is the book I was listening to as I decided that I wanted to be a full-time Pastor. (I have been a part-time Pastor and a part-time Teacher for the last 6 years.)

Weakness is the Way by J.I. Packer - Book Review

Weakness Is the Way: Life with Christ Our Strength by J.I. Packer is a fairly short book. I finished it in just a few settings (sittings?). The book begins with Packer defining weakness and then pointing us in a right direction for thinking about this topic from a Scriptural perspective. The rest of the book deals with the following more specific topics: Christ and the Christian's Calling, Christ and the Christian's Giving, and then Christ and the Christian's Hoping.

I absolutely enjoyed this book. I could tell that J. I. Packer was writing from his years of experience in life and in his Biblical studies. He is a thinking person. When I think of weakness in scripture, I don't automatically go to a Christian's Giving. I might head toward the topic of Calling or Hoping, but not Giving. As he explains it though, it absolutely makes sense. Listening to a thinking person, or reading a thinking author always gets me thinking.

To give you a taste of this, consider what Packer states near the beginning of the book:

For what is weakness? The idea from first to last is inadequacy. We talk about physical weakness, meaning that there is a lack of vigor and energy and perhaps bodily health so that one cannot manhandle furniture or tackle heavy yard jobs. We talk about intellectual weakness, meaning inability for some forms of brainwork, as for instance C. S. Lewis's almost total inability to do math, and my own messiness in that area. We talk about personal weakness, indicating thereby that a person lacks resolution, firmness of character, dignity, and the capacity to command. We talk about a weak position when a person lacks needed resources and cannot move situations forward or influence events as desired. We talk about relational weakness when persons who should be leading and guiding fail to do so -- weak parents, weak pastors, and so on. Every day finds us affirming the inadequacy of others at point after point.

He goes on to state:

The truth, however, is that in many respects, and certainly in spiritual matters, we are all weak and inadequate, and we need to face it. Sin, which disrupts all relationships, has disabled us all across the board. We need to be aware of our limitations and to let this awareness work in us humility and self-distrust, and a realization of our helplessness on our own. Thus we may learn our need to depend on Christ, our Savior and Lord, at every turn of the road, to practice that dependence as one of the constant habits of our heart, and hereby to discover what Paul discovered before us: "when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor. 12:10).

As I already mentioned, the remainder of the book plays out three other topics as they relate to weakness. These three focal points of weakness aren't arbitrarily chosen, they come from an expository look at 2 Corinthians to discover what this life of weakness looks like in those three areas.

Old People and their Technology!

I regularly rant (in my house) against the "evils" of video games and television. I do this, not primarily against the content of these technological advances, though that can be an issue, but against the time-wasting aspect that usage of these forms of entertainment are connected to. Don't get me wrong, I can enjoy a good show as much as the next person, but I have never thought to myself, "Wow. I should have spent more time playing games." or "Boy, I wish I could go back to my youth and watch more television."

This isn't just an issue with the young. There is no denying it, we all have seen many an elderly person waste away watching television, but even that isn't the prime issue. It is those who, in their 50's and 60's, are now living entirely for themselves. They feel that they have put in their time and now it is "all about me." I am sure they would not say these words, but their lives are vacation after vacation after vacation... in one form or another. We were simply not made to exist that way, and we do not continue to live and breathe simply for ourselves and our enjoyment.

J.I. Packer, hits on the realities of this in his book, Weakness Is the Way: Life with Christ Our Strength . The side-shoot of this topic is the resulting bleakness of life as one grows older. Many are simply "waiting for the end." Consider this quote from his book:

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast," declared Alexander Pope in his usual pompous way, but that is not all the story. For the first half of people's lives, spontaneous hope does indeed spur them forward. Children hope to do this and that when they grow up; teens hope to go places and do things when they have some money; newlyweds hope for a good income, a good place to live, and good-quality children; established couples hope for the day when the children will be off their hands and they are free to cruise, tour, and see the world. But what then? There comes a point at which the elderly and those who, as we say, are getting on realize that of all the things they wanted to do, they have done all they can, and the rest are now permanently out of reach ("life's too short," we say wryly). 

Yet life goes on. Today, indeed, people live longer than once they did, but the common experience is that extended and extreme age brings only bleak boredom and a diminished sense of the good life as consisting merely of three meals a day, television to watch, and a bed at night. Whether, as bodily health fades and minds and memories run increasingly amok, any better, more enriching experience of old age is possible is a question that secular social theory has shown itself unable to answer.  

But the Bible appears to have an answer... 

He goes on from this point to begin to describe the Bible's teachings combined with his own perspectives on aging and hope.

I am enjoying reading this book by Packer. I think it was free when I purchased it. It is a bit more expensive now, but it is definitely one worth picking up.

Taking God Seriously - Book Review

Taking God Seriously by J. I. Packer was not at all what I expected it to be.

I have read a couple of other Packer books.  I have thoroughly enjoyed everything that I have read from him in the past, so when this new book became available through Christian Audio, I was happy to listen to it in order to write a review.

Having read these other books by Packer, I was expecting this book to deal with big thoughts of how we need to take God seriously.  I was ready to soak in some over-arching themes on the importance of really listening to God and doing what He says.

My first surprise came when he started talking extensively about issues in the Anglican church.  Not only did I not know that Packer was Anglican, I had also never seen him refer to any current denominational issues.  This book contains numerous references to current issues that are plaguing the Anglican church and many other churches in the world today.  Much of this book felt like an address to others in the Anglican church to ... well ... take God seriously.

The next surprise that this book delivered was related to the content.  Sure, he addressed some issues that I expected, like repentance, but he also addressed some issues that I didn't expect, like church, baptism and communion.  Even though I didn't necessarily agree with everything he said, I also didn't find myself disagreeing with anything he said either. I found the information landing on very common ground and very Biblical, at the same time. But what made this surprise content really enlightening was that while I was listening to it, I found myself realizing that I hadn't been taking Baptism or Communion as seriously as I should, and that the question of taking God seriously couldn't really be dealt with until these issues were addressed.

If you've never encountered a book by J.I. Packer, this is a great place to start. He has a straight-forward, no-nonsense style of writing that I find refreshing.  He doesn't beat around the bush, he goes straight to the point, and he brought this direct style of writing, which I've normally encountered in his theological works, into this current, culturally relevant book.