J.I. Packer went to be with the Lord on July 17, 2020 at 93 years old. He was a wonderfully Godly man of God who wrote classic books such as: Knowing God, Keep in Step with the Spirit, A Quest for Godliness, Concise Theology, and so many more. He will be deeply missed, but thankfully he is with the Lord eternally.
For over 40 years, J. I. Packer’s classic book Knowing God has been an important tool to help Christians around the world discover the wonder, the glory and the joy of knowing God. In 2006, Christianity Today voted this title one of the top 50 books that have shaped evangelicals. This edition is updated with Americanized language and spelling and a new preface by the author.
Stemming from Packer’s profound theological knowledge, Knowing God brings together two important facets of the Christian faith― knowing about God and also knowing God through the context of a close relationship with the person of Jesus Christ. Written in an engaging and practical tone, this thought-provoking work seeks to transform and enrich the Christian understanding of God.
Explaining both who God is and how we can relate to him, Packer divides his book into three sections: The first directs our attention to how and why we know God, the second to the attributes of God and the third to the benefits enjoyed by a those who know him intimately. This guide leads readers into a greater understanding of God while providing advice to gaining a closer relationship with him as a result.
- Knowing God is Topping the Top 50 from 2016 WORLD Magazine’s
- Knowing God is one of the top 50 books that have shaped evangelicals (Christianity Today, 2006)
- Knowing God received the Platinum Book Award from Evangelical Christian Publishing Association
Reviews
A lifelong pursuit of knowing God should embody the Christian’s existence. According to eminent theologian J.I. Packer, however, Christians have become enchanted by modern skepticism and have joined the “gigantic conspiracy of misdirection” by failing to put first things first. Knowing God aims to redirect our attention to the simple, deep truth that to know God is to love His Word. What began as a number of consecutive articles angled for “honest, no-nonsense readers who were fed up with facile Christian verbiage” in 1973, Knowing God has become a contemporary classic by creating “small studies out of great subjects.” Each chapter is so specific in focus (covering topics such as the trinity, election, God’s wrath, and God’s sovereignty), that each succeeding chapter’s theology seems to rival the next, until one’s mind is so expanded that one’s entire view of God has changed. Author Elizabeth Eliot wrote that amid the lofty content Packer “puts the hay where the sheep can reach it–plainly shows us ordinary folks what it means to know God.” Having rescued us from the individual hunches of our ultra-tolerant theological age, Packer points the reader to the true character of God with his theological competence and compassionate heart. The lazy and faint-hearted should be warned about this timeless work–God is magnified, the sinner is humbled, and the saint encouraged. ~ Jill Heatherly
“If I can’t put the Bible on this list, I’ll choose a Packer book instead. Every national and world leader must seek to know the nations and world in which they serve. And in order to know this world and its people, we must first know the God who shaped and molded us all. Packer simply and powerfully re-introduces us to God: his attributes, actions, and, most important, his grace.” ~ Joshua DuBois, “My Top Five,” Christianity Today, September 2014
About the Author
J. I. Packer was Board of Governors Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He also serves as a contributing editor to Christianity Today and is the author of numerous books, including Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God.
J.I. Packer served as the Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He also serves as a contributing editor to Christianity Today. He was an ordained Anglican minister, he hold a D.Phil. from Oxford University. Dr. Packer’s many published works include “Rediscovering Holiness, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God,” and the best-selling “Knowing God.”
From the Back Cover
Over the past twenty years J.I. Packer’s classic has revealed to over a million Christians around the world the wonder, the glory and the joy of knowing God. This new edition is Americanized and completely retypeset with a new preface by the author. Now more than ever, next to Scripture, this could be the most significant book you will read this year, or next.
