What is Packer deeply concerned to help people understand? He is deeply concerned to help people understand God’s greatness (not unlike R.C. The questions will help leaders and readers alike.ġ. “I do not ask my readers to suppose that I know very well what I am talking about.”īy the way, definitely use the Knowing God Study Guide (IVP) for both group or individual study. ‘The good way’ is still what it used to be. According to Packer, what is the solution? Solution of the book is to point you to “old paths” (Jeremiah 6:16). * Spurgeon would call the present situation the “nose-dive” not just a “down-grade”Ħ. “It is a long time since theology has been so weak and clumsy at its basic task of holding the church to the realities of the gospel.” “The uncertainty and confusion about God which marks our day is worse than anything since Gnostic theosophy tried to swallow Christianity in the second century.” (2) Trend two is that “ Christian minds have been confused by the modern skepticism.” * Modern theology, philosophy, and science deny God’s sovereignty (naturalism of renaissance has worked itself out in the modern denial of God’s control of the world) * The Bible and fundamental Christian doctrines have come under fire * There is a wider skepticism of the existence and unity of truth * God is set at a distance * Churchmen even do this * Churches downplay the themes of death, eternity, judgment, the soul “It is not the business of the Church to adapt Christ to men, but men to Christ.” ~ Dorothy Sayers (1) Trend one is that “ Christian minds have been conformed to the modern spirit.” * Great thoughts of man and small thoughts of God. “Two unhappy trends seem to have produced this state of affairs.” What two trends does he say have caused this problem? Be ready to discuss. What does Packer say is his conviction behind the book? Do you agree? Conviction behind the book is that “ ignorance of God … lies at the root of much of the church’s weakness today.”ĥ. Theoretical only, versus theoretico-practical (see Van Mastricht).Ĥ. Explain the three examples he gives, re: (1) evil, (2) sin, and (3) Godhead (Trinity). The traveler grasps “not merely for comprehension, but for decision and action too.” Examples: (1) The problem of evil, (2) The question of sin, (3) The Trinity.ģ. Mackay’s thoughts) ? Two ways of approaching theology: (1) “balconeers,” theoretical-only, and (2) “travelers,” essentially practical. What are the two ways of approaching theology that Packer talks about (inspired by John A. What do the first two sentences tell you about the book and the author? “As clowns yearn to play Hamlet, so I have wanted to write a treatise on God.” Dr. When Packer was writing the articles that became Knowing God, what question did he ask himself after completing each article? He says that the “articles were prompted each time by the question, What do I tell them next?”ġ. For whom does Packer say he is writing Knowing God? The book is “angled for honest, no nonsense readers who were fed up with facile Christian verbiage”ģ. What does it mean that Packer calls Knowing God “a nurture book for the Christian world”? Packer is aiming for edification not just answers (cf. Some primary benefits of being God’s child.Īlso, note that the book could easily be broken into two semesters of study: The attributes of God, chapters 7-17 and The privileges and problems of living as a Christian, 1-6, 18-22.Ī great name for a church or group study of Knowing God is “Knowing God Together” – which is how we were meant to do it anyway!ġ. The outline of the whole book, could be summarized: I. Both must be acknowledged together if God is to be truly known.We could summarize the whole book, as teaching who God is and how we can relate to him. Both appear alongside each other in the economy of grace. Both are attributes of God – aspects, that is, of his revealed character. ‘Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity but toward thee, goodness.’ The Christians at Rome are not to dwell on God’s goodness alone, nor on his severity alone, but to contemplate both together. Now he invites them to take note of the two sides of God’s character which appeared in this transaction. He has just reminded his Gentile readers that God rejected the great mass of their Jewish contemporaries for unbelief, while at the same time bringing many pagans like themselves to saving faith. The apostle is explaining the relation between Jew and Gentile in the plan of God. ‘Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God,’ writes Paul in Romans 11: 22 (KJV).
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