James innell packer12/27/2023 ![]() In its obituary, Christianity Today describes him as “a humble man who repudiated the success ethic.” He was hugely successful, but not by trying to be. If we truly want to love God, we must know him. Packer, who died on Friday at the age of 93, fought that idea his whole life. My friend reported that the group turned to one of those books that tell you over and over that Jesus will make you happy. This book is way over everyone’s heads.” And then fired him. The first couple of weeks went well, he thought.Īnd then the lawyer called him. As teaching goes, it’s close to a driver’s ed class, when the instructor has you drive around a big empty parking lot. The book began as a series of short radio talks aimed at secular Englishmen who didn’t know much if anything about Christianity. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, hoping they wouldn’t think it too basic. The leader of the group, one of the town’s leading lawyers, asked him to lead a weekly study group, because he had a doctorate in theology. They knew they needed to know it to live for Christ as they wanted to. They told my friend they really wanted to know Christian teaching at a deep level. People who’d had to study hard and keep studying to do what they did for a living. Colorado Springs: NavPress and Tyndale House Publishers.They were doctors and lawyers and such. Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. ![]() In Psychology and Spiritual Formation in Dialogue: Moral and Spiritual Change, ed. Beyond Resilience, Posttraumatic Growth, and Self-Care: A Biblical Perspective on Suffering and Christian Spiritual Formation. Transforming Conversion: Rethinking the Language and Contours of Christian Initiation. Teaching the Faith, Forming the Faithful. Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way. Packer and the Evangelical Future: The Impact of His Life and Thought, ed. ![]() Rediscovering Holiness: Know the Fullness of Life with God. ![]() Packer: His Life and Thought, Kindle edition. Western Culture in Gospel Context: Towards the Conversion of the West-Theological Bearings for Mission and Spirituality. Grounded in the Faith: An Essential Guide to Knowing What You Believe and Why. Nashville: Broadman and Holman.Įrisman, Kenneth. The Power of Persistence: Breakthroughs in Your Prayer Life. Conformed to His Image: Biblical and Practical Approaches to Spiritual Formation. Eugene: Pickwick Publications.īayes, Jonathan F. Evangelism and Openness of God: The Implications of Relational Theism. For Packer, spiritual formation is a healthy obsession with Christ, which reveals God’s love through the work of the Spirit as essence of the Gospel. Spiritual formation thus includes a radically changed behaviour because we must always be catechists, confessors of Christ. When we are Christ’s disciples and slaves, we become catechists and we are able to teach others about Christ by finding happiness in pursuing the only path leading to God in Christ through catechesis. Spiritual formation is not complete until, as Packer makes it clear, we follow Christ not only as disciples but also as slaves. We must also learn how to live under Christ’s authority in order to become Christ’s disciples. As part of our spiritual formation, we must learn about God’s truth, about his revelation to us in history, and this is a process that requires personal intellectual efforts. What follows after conversion is growth, when we grow into our spiritual formation by becoming more aware of God through intense study and informed discernment. Packer insists that spiritual formation is a process which begins with God, when we are helped by God’s Spirit to turn to Christ through conversion.
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