It is very important that one approaches Scripture as the word of God, not just a mixed bag of human religious reflections and testimonies, some of which are likely to be more right-minded, some less, so that our main job is to pick out which are which. This is very inhibiting to fruitful dealing with the Scriptures.
Trust or mistrust?
As I look around I see a broad division between people whose attitude to the Bible is in general one of trust, because they take the Bible as coming from God, and those whose attitude is fundamentally one of mistrust, because they see it only as a very mixed collection of human testimonies.
Some of these latter folk have been stumbled by what they’ve been given in seminary, because it has been fashionable for the last 100 years in many Protestant seminaries, and for some 40 or 50 years in many Catholic seminaries (Particularly after Vatican II), to highlight the human aspects of Scripture and dwell on differences, real or fancied, between the viewpoint of one writer and another. The effect of this can be to leave students adrift in a sea of pluralistic relativism, with a bewildering sense that the Bible offers a lot of different points of view and who is to say which is right?
All Scripture proceeds from a single source
I am not questioning the value of these studies of the human side of Scripture, but I see a need to balance that in a way that not all seminaries do. I would balance them by saying to all Bible students, in and out of seminary:Â
“Remember, all Scripture proceeds from a single source, a single mind, the mind of God the Holy Spirit, and you have not taken its measure until you can see its divine unity in and underlying its human variety.”
It is the word of God in the form of human words, giving God’s point of view in the form on everything. The unity of Scripture at that level is something that goes far deeper than its surface differences.
Only God can fill our emptiness with an appetite for his wordÂ
The biggest thing that keeps us from getting the full benefit of Scripture is simply that we do not feel needy enough. One of the problems of the pastoral role is that it encourages leaders to think that they are full of competence; they have got i made; they know it all. This self-sufficiency is a satanic temptation. A moment of realistic thought will remind us that we are as needy as the next person.Â
I find it most helpful to remind myself at the beginning of my devotional period [daily time of personal prayer] who God is and what I am. That is to say, I remind myself that God is great, transcendent, that he loves me and he wants to speak to me right now. And I recall that I am the original sinner, the perverse and stupid oaf who misses God’s way constantly. I have made any number of mistakes in my life up to this point and will make a lot more today if I don’t keep in touch with God, and with Christ, my Lord and Savior, as I should.
There is nothing like a sense of hunger to give one an appetite for a meal, and there is nothing like a sense of spiritual emptiness and need to give me an appetite for the word of God. Let that be the theme of our first minute or two of prayer as we come to our devotional times, and then we will be tuned in right. God says,
“Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.”
Psalm 81:10
The quantity of theological notions in one’s mind, even correct notions, doesn’t say anything about one’s relationship with God. The fact that one knows a lot of theology doesn’t mean that one’s relationship with God is right or is going to be right. The two things are quite distinct.
As a professional theologian I find it both helpful and needful to focus this truth to myself by saying to myself over and over again, “What a difference there is between knowing notions, even true notions, and knowing God.” My times with the Bible, like those of all pastoral leaders, indeed all Christians, are meant to be times for knowing God.
This article is excerpted from Encountering God in Scripture: An Interview with J.I. Packer, published by the Alliance for Faith and Renewal, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA © 1990]
Top image credit: photo of a person reading the Bible, from Bigstock.com, © by doidam10, stock photo ID: 331805947. Used with permission.
J.I. Packer (1926-2020) was a contributing speaker and writer for Pastoral Renewal and the Allies for Faith and Renewal Conferences organized by Servant Ministries / Sword of the Spirit. His book, Rediscovering Holiness was first published by Servant Books, Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1992.
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Excerpt from a tribute to JI Packer
by Leland Ryken for Christianity Today magazine, July 2020
James Innell Packer, better known to many as J. I. Packer, was one of the most famous and influential evangelical leaders of our time. He died July 17 2020 at age 93.
J.I. Packer was born in a village outside of Gloucester, England, on July 22, 1926. He came from humble stock, being born into a family that he called lower middle class. The religious climate at home and church was that of nominal Anglicanism rather than evangelical belief in Christ as Savior (something that Packer was not taught in his home church).
His conversion to Christ, which happened within two weeks of his matriculation as an undergraduate at Oxford University. Packer committed his life to Christ on October 22, 1944, while attending an evangelistic service sponsored by the campus InterVarsity chapter.
Although Packer was a serious student pursuing a classics degree, the heartbeat of his life at Oxford was spiritual. It was at Oxford that Packer first heard lectures from C. S. Lewis, and though they were never personally acquainted, Lewis would exert a powerful influence on Packer’s life and work. When Packer left Oxford with his doctorate on Richard Baxter in 1952, he did not immediately begin his academic career but spent a three-year term as a parish minister in suburban Birmingham.
Packer had a varied professional life. He spent the first half of his career in England before moving to Canada for the second half. In England, Packer held various teaching posts at theological colleges in Bristol, during which he had a decade-long interlude as warden (director) of Latimer House in Oxford, a clearinghouse for evangelical interests in the Church of England. In that role, Packer was one of the three most influential evangelical leaders in England (along with John Stott and Martyn Lloyd-Jones). Packer’s move to Regent College in Vancouver in 1979 shocked the evangelical world but enlarged Packer’s influence for the rest of his life.
J.I. Packer filled so many roles that we can accurately think of him as having had multiple careers. He earned his livelihood by teaching and was known to those who were his students as a professor. But the world at large knows Packer as an author and speaker.
Packer’s fame as a speaker rivaled his stature as an author. In both spheres, his generosity was unsurpassed. No audience or venue was too small to elicit Packer’s best effort. His publishing career was a case study in accepting virtually every request that was made of him. His signature book, Knowing God (which has sold a million and a half copies), began as a series of bimonthly articles requested by the editor of a small evangelical magazine.
In both his publishing and speaking, Packer was famous as a Puritan scholar, but he was also a dedicated churchman who said that his teaching was primarily aimed at the education of future ministers. When asked late in life what his final words to the church might be, Packer replied, “I think I can boil it down to four words: Glorify Christ every way.”