Book Review: "Knowing God," J.I. Packer
So many good books are released with such regularity these days that it’s easy for “classic” books to fall away into the background, eclipsed by the FOMO rush to stay up with the latest buzz in Christian publishing. C.S. Lewis said, "It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.”
The book I’m going to talk about briefly here is actually not that old. J.I. Packer’s Knowing God was released in 1973, but it has stood the test of time as a classic work of theology that could edify all believers who are serious about, well . . . serious about “knowing God.” Setting the tone for this work, Packers opens the book by quoting Charles Spurgeon: “The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the doings and the existence of the great God whom he calls Father.” And that’s what Knowing God is — a study of the attributes of the Biblical God, including his wisdom, majesty, love, goodness, truthfulness and wrath.
This is definitely a book of theology, which is simply the study of who God is. For many, theology is a chore, but everyone should realize that we all adhere to a theology — that is, we all have thoughts about who God is, and who God isn’t; what he does, and what he doesn’t do. That’s theology. The important thing to consider is whether your thoughts about God are in line with how God has revealed himself to be on the pages of Scripture, because if your thoughts about God are not Scriptural, the god you are thinking about is a false god.
Some avoid the study of theology because they are afraid it might make them confused, or that their faith will become heartless and too intellectual, or that they will become puffed up in self-righteous condescension. It’s true, these unfortunate results can happen, but Packer offers a correction to this in the very early pages of the book. He says the study of theology is ”bound to go bad on us” if we “come to think of ourselves as a cut above other Christians” (p. 21). So instead, as we grow in theological understanding, “we turn each truth we learn about God into matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God.”
One of the good things about this book is that Packer does not allow theology to turn into a dry academic exercise, as is evidenced by his treatment of the wisdom of God, based on the book of Ecclesiastes. HIs words are worth repeating at length:
“The God who rules (the world) hides himself. Rarely does this world look as if a beneficent Providence were running it . . . We feel sure that God has enabled us to understand all his ways with us and our circle thus far, and we take it for granted that we shall be able to see at once the reason for anything that may happen to us in the future. And then something very painful and quite inexplicable comes along, and our cheerful illusion of being in God’s secret councils is shattered. Our pride is wounded; we feel that God has slighted us . . . This is what happens when we do not heed the message of Ecclesiastes. For the truth is that God in his wisdom, to make and keep us humble and to teach us to walk by faith, has hidden from us almost everything that we should like to know about the providential purposes which he is working out in the churches and in our own lives.” (p.106).
This book is definitely worth picking up again, if you read it back in the day and have forgotten about it. And it’s definitely worth reading if you’re learning about it for the first time right here. Instead of clicking “purchase” on that new release, consider putting this old classic by J.I. Packer in the cart instead.
