eBook
Related collections and offers
Overview
Dr. J. I. Packer offers biblical reflections on life's tough issues. Discussing topics like pleasure, health, disappointment, and holiness, he maps out problematic situations and then superimposes relevant biblical teachings.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781433517372 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Crossway |
| Publication date: | 09/18/2001 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| File size: | 540 KB |
About the Author
J. I. Packer (1926–2020) served as the Board of Governors' Professor of Theology at Regent College. He authored numerous books, including the classic bestseller Knowing God. Packer also served as general editor for the English Standard Version Bible and as theological editor for the ESV Study Bible.
J. I. Packer (1926–2020) served as the Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology at Regent College. He authored numerous books, including the classic bestseller Knowing God. Packer also served as general editor for the English Standard Version Bible and as theological editor for the ESV Study Bible.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Danger! Theologian at Work What These Chapters Are Meant to Do
A favorite picture book for three-year-olds, I Am a Bunny, looks at life from a rabbit's point of view. On that basis, this book could well be called I Am a Theologian. Such a title would sound conceited, elitist, and stuffy to the last degree. Like a lead balloon, it would sink the book and its author straight into oblivion. Yet, as a declaration of commitment rather than a claim to competence, it would not be wholly unfit. My goal is to pinpoint some problems that a theologian cannot help but see and to fulfill in relation to them, as best I can, the theologian's proper and distinctive role.
What is that? Well, what is theology? (Always begin at the beginning!) Theology is one of those terms (there are not too many of them) whose meaning is clear from its derivation. Theology comes from two Greek words, theos (God) and logos (discourse, speech, line of argument), and means simply God-talk or, more fully, thoughts about God expressed in statements about God. God-thoughts are only right when they square with God's own thoughts about himself; theology becomes good only when we let God's revealed truth — that is, Bible teaching — penetrate our minds. So theology is an exercise of listening before it is one of talking. It is the attempt to hear what the Westminster Confession I.x calls "the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture" and then to apply what Scripture says to correct and direct our lives. We bring our doubts and questions to the Bible's teaching for resolution, and we allow God in and through that same teaching to question us about the way we think and live. The name of theologian is given to those who help with this process.
There is a sense in which every Christian is a theologian. Simply by speaking of God, whatever you say, you become a theologian, just as by hitting the keys you become a pianist, whatever it sounds like. (My twenty-three-month-old grandson was fulfilling the role of pianist even as I wrote the first draft.) The question then is whether you are good or bad at what you are doing. But as in secular speech the word pianist is normally kept for competent performers, so in Christian speech the word theologian is kept for those who in some sense specialize in the study of God's truth.
What use are such people? Is there a particular job that we should look to them to do for us? Yes, there is. By the lake in a resort I know stands a building grandly labeled Environmental Control Center. It is the sewage plant, there to ensure that nothing fouls the water; its staff is comprised of water engineers and sewage specialists. Think of theologians as the church's sewage specialists. Their role is to detect and eliminate intellectual pollution and to ensure, so far as man can, that God's life-giving truth flows pure and unpoisoned into Christian hearts.
Their calling obliges them to act as the church's water engineers, seeking by their preaching, teaching, and biblical exposition to make the flow of truth strong and steady; but it is particularly as disposers of spiritual sewage that I want to portray them. They are to test the water and filter out anything that confuses minds, corrupts judgments, and distorts the way that Christians view their own lives. If they see Christians astray, they must haul them back on track; if they see them dithering, they must give them certainty; if they find them confused, they must straighten them out. That is why this book might be called I Am a Theologian, for this is precisely what I am attempting to do.
The chapters that follow deal with some crucial questions about which Christians often feel hesitant and uncertain. These questions all have a directly personal twist. What is God up to in his world, bewildering and agonizing as it so often proves to be? Who is entitled to claim his acquaintance? What will holiness require of me? How will God guide me? Will he guide me at all? Is there such a thing as divine healing? What should I expect from God when I am sick or when I feel broken into little pieces? How should I react to my own reactions to things, and to the present condition of the church? These are some of the questions on which I add my mite to the treasury of Christian discussion. They are important questions that often receive wrong answers, and I want to say what I can about them.
Map Making
What should a theologian do when facing questions of this sort? Picture it thus: He should make a map of each problematical life situation, with all the human factors involved, and then superimpose all the relevant biblical teachings and Bible-based considerations. The scale of the map will need to be fairly large. The map is to be used when walking cross-country, so correctness of detail is important.
The Christian life is cross-country travel all the way, with hedges and ditches, ups and downs, rough places and smooth places, deserts and swamps. There are storms and fogs periodically punctuating the sunshine. The purpose of the map is to enable the walker to find his way at all times, whatever the terrain and whatever the weather. With a good map he will recognize the terrain around him, relate the features he observes to the larger landscape, and see at each stage where he should go. Theology's proper goal is to equip the disciples of Jesus Christ for obedience. The maps theologians draw are meant, not simply to be possessed as so much intellectual wealth, but rather to be used for the believer's route-finding in his personal pilgrimage of following his Lord.
Technicalities (sometimes unavoidable in theology, as in any field of scientific study) will be pursued only for the sake of simplicity. Simplicity of principle, once it is achieved, makes for straightforwardness of practice. The best theological maps are clear and have seven basic qualities.
First, they are accurate in their presentation of material, both human and biblical. Nothing can compensate for failure here.
Second, they are God-centered, recognizing divine sovereignty at the heart of everything and showing God's control of problematical events, both actual and imaginable.
Third, they are doxological, giving God glory for his glorious achievements in creation, providence, and grace, and encouraging a spirit of joyous, trustful worship and adoration in all circumstances.
Fourth, they are future-oriented, for Christianity is a religion of hope. Often the only sense theology can make of present trends, conditions, and behavior patterns, as they both mark society and touch individuals, is to diagnose them as fruits of sin and hold forth the promise that God will one day wipe them out and unveil something better.
Fifth, they are Christ-related in two ways. On the one hand, they proclaim the centrality of Jesus our mediator, prophet, priest, and king, in all God's present dealings with, and future plans for, the human race. On the other hand, they reformulate our notional perplexities by turning them into practical issues of faithfully following the Savior whom we love along the path of self-denial and cross-bearing, according to his own explicit call (see Luke 9:23). They show us how to walk patiently with him through experiences that defeat our minds and feel like death, into the experienced reality of personal internal resurrection. This is the biblical way to live the Christian life, and good theological maps lead us right into it.
Sixth, such maps are church-centered. The New Testament presents the church as central in God's plan. Christians are not meant to journey through life in isolation but in company with fellow believers, supporting them and being supported by them.
Seventh, good theological maps are freedom-focused. They are tuned in to the decision-making processes of authentically Christian men and women — that is, people who know themselves to be free from the law as a system of salvation, yet desire to live by it, first, out of love for their Lord who wills this; second, out of love for the law itself, which now delights them with its vision of righteousness; and third, out of self-love, since they know that there is no real happiness for them either here or hereafter without holiness. Freedom from what restricts and enslaves is the negative aspect of freedom for the fulfillment and contentment that constitute true happiness, and it is this positive reality of holy, happy freedom in Christ that theology must always seek to promote.
Good theology constantly calls for deliberate, responsible decisions about how we are going to live, and it never forgets that Christian decisions are commitments to action on principle (not out of mindless conformity), undertaken in freedom (not from external pressure or bullying), and motivated primarily by love of God and of justice (not by fear). Good theology thus molds Christian character, neither demeaning nor diminishing us but rather enhancing our God-given dignity.
Is theology dangerous, as my title for this chapter might seem to suggest? Not in itself, unless it is done on false principles — but dangers certainly exist for those who take theology seriously, though the dangers are greater for those who don't. Neglect theology, and sooner or later, however well-intentioned you are, you will make big practical blunders that you may never recognize as blunders. The outcome will be sad, perhaps the saddest imaginable.
Attend to theology, however, and you will find yourself lured toward the Pharisaic downfall of the arrogant know-all who tells others what to do while forgetting that he needs to do the same himself. Those who work hard theologizing, whether as professionals or from general interest, have to battle these twin temptations. The first is to see themselves as superior Christians because they know more than others, and the second is to exempt themselves from obligations that bind others, as if their expertise puts them in a class by themselves to which ordinary rules do not apply.
Every member of our fallen race is tempted to indulge pride in some form, for pride is of the essence of our heritage of original sin; and this is the recurring form in which would-be theologians, clergy and layfolk, academics and pastors alike, have to encounter that temptation. God's ideal for us, however, is that we should always think and speak and live in the manner shown in the previous paragraphs, and humble honesty in seeking to conform to that ideal is the only godly way for any of us to go. Theological discussion of questions involved in knowing God's plans for us must always seek to point us along that road.
There is no denying that many theological treatments of problem areas fail to measure up to these criteria. Authoritarianism within the church, secularism from outside, and a restless Athenian cast of mind in universities and seminaries have constantly combined to contaminate theology, both past and present. But that need not concern us now. I have written this chapter only so that you will know the standards to which I am trying to work. I may well fail; you shall be the judge of that. But if I do, please remember that, like the pianist whom the wild Westerners in a certain famous cartoon planned to shoot, I am doing my best.
The foregoing paragraphs were drafted in 1987, and it is now 2001. I am often asked whether over the years I have changed my mind about anything in Christianity. The answer is no, at least not consciously; if there is a difference, it is in the way I respond to positions that deviate from my own. The Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau, when asked how aging had affected his playing, replied: "The fingers grow wiser." I hope something like that might be said of the items in this book, carefully reviewed and sometimes enlarged, that have appeared before.
Now let us move on.
CHAPTER 2The Plan of God
The Basic Christian Orientation
Is There a Plan?
People today feel lost and astray. Modern art, poetry, and novels, or five minutes' conversation with any sensitive person will assure us of that. It may seem odd that this is so in an era when we have more control over the forces of nature than ever before. But it really is not. It is God's judgment, which we have brought down on ourselves by trying to feel too much at home in this world.
For that is what we have done. We refuse to believe that one should live for something more than this present life. Even if we suspect the materialists are wrong in denying that God and another world exist, we have not allowed our belief to keep us from living on materialistic principles. We have treated this world as if it were the only home we shall ever possess and have concentrated exclusively on arranging it for our comfort. We thought we could build heaven on earth.
Now God has judged us for our impiety. During the past century we had two "hot" world wars and one "cold" one, the latter in some respects still continuing. We find ourselves today in the age of nuclear warfare, racism, tribalism, global racketeering, torture, terrorism, and all sorts of brainwashing. In such a world it is not possible to feel at home. It is a world that has disappointed us. We expected life to be friendly. Instead, it has mocked our hopes and left us disillusioned and frustrated. We thought we knew what to make of life. Now we are baffled as to whether anything can ever be made of it. We thought of ourselves as wise men. Now we find ourselves like benighted children, lost in the dark.
Sooner or later this was bound to happen. God's world is never friendly to those who forget its Maker. The Buddhists, who link their atheism with a thorough pessimism about life, are to that extent correct. Without God, man loses his bearings in this world. He cannot find them again until he has found the One whose world it is. It is natural that nonbelievers feel their existence is pointless and miserable. We should not wonder when these bitter, frustrated souls turn to drugs and drink or when teenagers respond to the traumatic chaos around them by committing suicide. God made life, and God alone can tell us its meaning. If we are to make sense of life in this world, then, we must know about God. And if we want to know about God, we must turn to the Bible.
Read the Bible
So let us read the Bible — if we can. But can we? Many of us have lost the ability. When we open our Bibles, we do so in a frame of mind that forms an insurmountable barrier to reading it at all. This may sound startling, but it is true. Let me explain.
When you read a book, you treat it as a unit. You look for the plot or the main thread of the argument and follow it through to the end. You let the author's mind lead yours. Whether or not you allow yourself to "dip" before settling down to absorb the book, you know that you will not have understood it till you have read it from start to finish. If it is a book that you want to master, you set aside time for a careful, unhurried journey through it.
But when we come to Holy Scripture, our behavior is different. To start with, we are not in the habit of treating it as a book — a unit — at all; we approach it simply as a collection of separate stories and sayings. We take it for granted that these items represent either moral advice or comfort for those in trouble. So we read the Bible in small doses, a few verses at a time. We do not go through individual books, let alone the two Testaments, as a single whole. We browse through the rich old Jacobean periods of the King James Version or the informalities of the New Living Translation, waiting for something to strike us. When the words bring a soothing thought or a pleasant picture, we believe the Bible has done its job. We have come to view the Bible not as a book, but as a collection of beautiful and suggestive snippets, and it is as such that we use it. The result is that, in the ordinary sense of "read," we never read the Bible at all. We take it for granted that we are handling Holy Writ in the truly religious way, but this use of it is in fact merely superstitious. It is, I grant, the way of natural religiosity. But it is not the way of true religion.
God does not intend Bible reading to function simply as a drug for fretful minds. The reading of Scripture is intended to awaken our minds, not to send them to sleep. God asks us to approach Scripture as his Word — a message addressed to rational creatures, people with minds, a message we cannot expect to understand without thinking about it. "Come now, and let us reason together," said God to Judah through Isaiah (Isa. 1:18 KJV), and he says the same to us every time we take up his book. He has taught us to pray for divine enlightenment as we read. "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law" (Ps. 119:18 KJV). This is a prayer for God to give us insight as we think about his Word. But we effectively prevent God from answering this prayer if after praying we blank out and stop thinking as we read.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "God's Plans for You"
by .
Copyright © 2001 J. I. Packer.
Excerpted by permission of Good News Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Preface,
1 danger! Theologian at Work What These Chapters Are Meant to Do,
2 The Plan of God The Basic Christian Orientation,
3 Meeting God The Basic Christian Relationship,
4 Hot Tub Religion Toward a Theology of Enjoyment,
5 A Christian Style of Life Managing our Labor, Leisure, Pleasure, and Treasure,
6 Guidance How God Leads Us,
7 Joy A Neglected Discipline,
8 Scripture and Sanctification How the Bible Helps Us to Holiness,
9 The Transformation Track What It Means to Follow Christ,
10 Poor Health Physical Cures and Healing,
11 Disappointment, Despair, Depression How the Great Physician Touches Troubled Minds,
12 Know Yourself Identity and Self-Image,
13 Power Path Taking the Holy Spirit Seriously,
14 Musings on the Life of Faith Double-Mindedness, Seriousness, Balance, Dying,
15 Church Reformation Outward Reordering and Inward Renewal,
Notes,