J. I. Packer
J. I. Packer
JamesInnell Packeris a British-born Canadian Christian theologian in the low church Anglican and Reformed traditions. He currently serves as the Board of Governors' Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is considered one of the most influential evangelicals in North America. He has been the theologian emeritus of the Anglican Church in North America, since its inception in 2009...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionClergyman
Date of Birth22 July 1926
grace calling his-love
We do not make friends with God; God makes friends with us, bringing us to know him by making his love known to us... The word know, when used of God in this way, is a sovereign-grace word, pointing to God's initiative in loving, choosing, redeeming, calling and preserving.
biblical grace favors
To mend our own relationship with God, regaining God's favor after having once lost it, is beyond the power of any one of us. And one must see and bow to this before one can share the biblical faith in God's grace.
grace merit guilty
The grace of God is love freely shown toward guilty sinners, contrary to their merit and indeed in defiance of their demerit.
grace new-testament theology
This one word 'grace' contains within itself the whole of New Testament theology.
fall grace leaving
Martin Luther described the doctrine of justification by faith as the article of faith that decides whether the church is standing or falling. By this he meant that when this doctrine is understood, believed, and preached, as it was in New-Testament times, the church stands in the grace of God and is alive; but where it is neglected, overlaid, or denied, ... the church falls from grace and its life drains away, leaving it in a state of darkness and death.
believe grace needs
I need not torment myself with the fear that my faith may fail; as grace led me to faith in the first place, so grace will keep me believing to the end. Faith, both in its origin and continuance, is a gift of grace (Phil 1:29).
weaker
Evangelical churches are weaker than we realize because we don't teach the confessions and doctrine.
indirect lewis
The books of C.S. Lewis had a very profound, indirect effect on me.
appears change doctrines god means reality stayed understanding walk worship
Christianity has stayed stable, as it must do. The doctrines don't change. The understanding of what it means to walk with God doesn't change. The reality of worship doesn't change, not at heart, anyway. So Christianity appears to be stuck.
counts editorial gave god inspiring material preparing
I'm saying that an editorial process that is preparing the material for publication counts as part of the inspiring process whereby God, in his sovereignty, gave every word.
editor evident quite testament work
In some Old Testament books, it's very evident that an editor has been at work. That's quite all right. It's part of the process.
prayer spirit sin
I must ask the Lord to direct the Holy Spirit within me to drain the life out of sin and in prayer.
taught endeavor response
Evangelizing includes the endeavor to elicit a response to the truth taught.
christian life-changing ignorance
Optimism is a wish without warrant; Christian hope is a certainty, guaranteed by God himself. Optimism reflects ignorance as to whether good things will ever actually come. Christian hope expresses knowledge that every day of his life, and every moment beyond it, the believer can say with truth, on the basis of God's own commitment, that the best is yet to come.