J.I. Packer

Marks of Revival

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Revival Fires

I had the privilege last week to meet a man convinced we are headed for revival.  He is a gentle man, who thinks often of God, wishing for a return to some semblance of the way things used to be – minus the overt sins of racism and sexism that were so widely tolerated in days gone by.  But the basic reason for his certainty is simple: We are in desperate need of revival. He had other reasons, of course; supporting reasons. Among them, through his examination of of history he has concluded that God works cyclically, and that we are presently overdue for the next revival.

I share his desire to see God bring revival.  I can’t argue that we are overdue and in desperate need. And it is not just America that needs to be “revived”.  More than our culture, I believe the American Church needs to experience revival.  And when God works, he works through his church. So if revival is to occur, reorienting the cultural drift, renewing God as the rightful object of our collective affection, it is going to be at work in and through the Church.

But still, what does revival actually mean? Of course it means “to make alive”.  But what does it look like? Do all revivals look alike? What are the characteristics?

I suspect the answer the the question “Do all revivals look alike?” is likely a “No”.  Cultures are different. God seems to bless different expressions of evangelism and ministry approaches from one generation to the next; one culture to the next.  So to assume when revivals hit they will be uniform seems a bit of a stretch to me.

J.I. Packer,defines a revival this way:

“Revival is God accelerating, intensifying, and extending the work of grace that goes on in every Christian’s life!”

In his book God in our Midst, Packer suggests that, among the variety of God’s ways, there are at least five constants that seem to always appear in biblical revivals:

1. Awareness of God’s presence: “The first and fundamental feature in renewal is the sense that God has drawn awesomely near in his holiness, mercy and might.”

2. Responsiveness to God’s Word: “The message of Scripture which previously was making only a superficial impact, if that, now searches its hearers and readers to the depth of their being.”

3. Sensitiveness to (Our Own) Sin: “Consciences become tender and a profound humbling takes place.”

4. Liveliness in Community: “Love and generosity, unity and joy, assurance and boldness, a spirit of praise and prayer, and a passion to reach out to win others, are recurring marks of renewed communities.”

5. Fruitfulness in Testimony: “Christians proclaim by word and deed the power of the new life, souls are won, and a community conscience informed by Christian values emerges.”

I hope my new friend is right, that God – who is always at work – will soon be at work in unusual ways.  These are some of the signs I will pray will be evident in our culture, and in our church.

Knowing God

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Thinking Man (B&W)

More than 200 names for God are recorded in the Bible.  All of them are important.  Each of them reveals and affirms certain characteristics of God.  While God is incomprehensible – we will never exhaust what there is to know about Him – He is nevertheless knowable.  He has revealed himself to us.  To know God is to recognize what He is like – and what He is not like.  As J.I. Packer once said:

“Those who know God have great thoughts of God.”

So what is God like?

This is not an academic question.  Though certainly there are some Academics in the news recently who may have been well served to have given a little more thought to the question before holding a press conference only to display syncretistic ignorance.  But even in that instance the question is not merely academic.  It is personal.

When asked: “What is the greatest commandment?”,  Jesus unhesitatingly declared: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”  (Matthew 22.36-40; Deuteronomy 6.1-7) So let me ask a somewhat rhetorical question: “How can one love God if little to nothing is known about God?  Further, even if it is possible to love a god one knows little about, (and I suspect that it may be possible,) how can we claim to be keeping the command to “Love God with all your mind” if we do not engage our minds to learn more and more about him?

Now let me be clear about something: If you are reading this post, and you feel you are less knowledgeable theologically than you think you ought to be, I am not trying to shame you.  Truth is this: I am fairly theologically educated.  If you have any knowledge of God at all, the difference between your little knowledge and my educated knowledge is so minimal when compared to what knowledge there is to be known about God, that any sense of haughtiness I might be inclined to project would be laughable, if such pomposity would not be so pathetic.  My concern is not who knows more than who, but rather whether we  know God, and whether, in keeping with the greatest command, we are engaging our minds to be continually growing in our knowledge of God.

If you have a desire to love the Lord with all your mind, let me offer a handful of suggested books about God with which to feed your mind.  None of these are technical, but all are excellent. (To my mind, these are actually better than most of the technical theological books I have read.)

This list is far from exhaustive. There are many excellent books on this subject, and I welcome anyone who would like to add to this list to do so in the comment section.  Sadly, there are many, many, bad books under this heading as well.  Some of the better books I left off this list are Knowing God by J.I. Packer and Reason for God by Timothy Keller.  While I enjoyed and highly commend both of these, the list above reflects a thorough introduction and/or reflection, yet easy reads.  Keller’s is excellent for those asking the question: Is There a God? Packer’s would be on my list for next steps.

I will end with this: Earlier this year I heard a statement, attributed to John Piper (though I have been unable to confirm it is his), that stuck with me, resonates, and is appropriate to ponder:

“The mind provides kindling for the heart.”

Losing Our Gospel Grip

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Losing Grip

Evidence abounds all around that the current Spiritual climate of the typical Evangelical church is rightly described by sociologist Christian Smith as “more akin to Moralistic-Therapeutic-Deism than anything resembling historic Christianity.”   I paraphrased Smith there, but it reflects the essence of Smith’s assessment.  (If you want a refresher on what Moralistic-Therapeutic-Deism is click here & here.)

J.I. Packer, in his sagacious Introduction to John Owen‘s Death of Death in the Death of Christ, offers one of the best and most comprehensive explanations I have recently read about how we got this way.  In short, Packer suggests, we have embraced a counterfeit gospel.

Read what Packer wrote, and think about how his critique compares with what you hear from the pulpit in your church:

There is no doubt that evangelicalism today is in a state of perplexity and unsettlement. In such matters as the practice of evangelism, the teaching of holiness, the building up of local church life, the pastor’s dealing with souls and the exercise of discipline, there is evidence of widespread dissatisfaction with things as they are and or equally widespread uncertainty as to the road ahead. This is a complex phenomenon, to which many factors have contributed; but, if we go to the root of the matter, we shall find that these perplexities are all ultimately due to our having lost our grip on the biblical gospel. Without realizing it, we have during the past century bartered that gospel for a substitute product which, though it looks similar enough in points of detail, is as a whole a decidedly different thing. Hence our troubles; for the substitute product does not answer the ends for which the authentic gospel has in past days proved itself so mighty. Why?

We would suggest that the reason lies in its own character and content. It fails to make men God-centered in their thoughts and God-fearing in their hearts because this is not primarily what it is trying to do. One way of stating the difference between it and the old gospel is to say that it is too exclusively concerned to be ‘helpful’ to man – to bring peace, comfort, happiness, satisfaction – and too little concerned to glorify God. The old gospel was ‘helpful’, too – more so, indeed, than is the new – but (so to speak) incidentally, for its first concern was always to give glory to God. It was always and essentially a proclamation of divine sovereignty in mercy and judgment, a summons to bow down and worship the mighty Lord on whom man depends for all good, both in nature and in grace. Its center of reference was unambiguously God. But in the new gospel the center of reference is man. This is just to say that the old gospel was religious in a way that the new gospel is not. Whereas the chief aim of the old was to teach people to worship God, the concern of the new seems limited to making them feel better. The subject of the old gospel was God and his ways with men; the subject of the new is man and the help God gives him. There is a world of difference. The whole perspective and emphasis of gospel preaching has changed.

From this change of interest has sprung a change of content, for the new gospel has in effect reformulated the biblical message in the supposed interests of ‘helpfulness’. Accordingly, the themes of man’s natural inability to believe, of God’s free election being the ultimate cause of salvation, and of Christ dying specifically for his sheep are not preached. These doctrines, it would be said, are not ‘helpful’; they would drive sinners to despair, by suggesting to them that it is not in their own power to be saved through Christ. (The possibility that such despair might be salutary is not considered: it is taken for granted that it cannot be, because it is so shattering to our self-esteem.) However this may be, the result of these omissions is that part of the biblical gospel is now preached as if it were the whole of that gospel; and a half-truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth.

NOTE: One thing amazing to me is that Packer wrote this in 1958!  …Two years before Christian Smith was even born.  Our plight has been long time coming.  Recovering a thoroughly Biblical gospel is the only recipe for our recovery.

Art of Our Discontent

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Trevin Wax asks these questions:

How do unbelievers know we are Christians?

  • By the fish symbols on our car?
  • By our bumper stickers?
  • By our voting patterns?
  • By our church attendance?

No. Jesus tells us that the outside world will know we are Christians by the way we love one another.  (John 13.34-35; 1 John 4.12)  When we submit to one another in love, we bolster our evangelistic witness by showing the world that love and authority don’t have to be separated.  God’s rule is life-giving.  He rules us for our good and for his glory, and the church reflects that loving rule.

(From Counterfeit Gospels, page 157)

But what about when that love runs cold?  What are faithful followers of Christ to do when we grate on one another or disappoint one another?  I am not talking about when we are in conflict, necessarily. I have in mind when we just seem to grow apart?

This is a pertinent question to ponder, because inevitably most will experience this in at least some relationships with others in our churches.  So how are we to respond? How can we most glorify God in these situations?

First, let me offer an illustration of a way not to respond.

Once, in a previous church I served, I participated in a discussion with a church member who had seemingly disappeared.  As we inquired about him, how was doing, and what he was up to, he informed us that he had been disappointed by some of the Elders in the church.  None of us had been aware that this had been the case, so we were filled with a mixture of emotions: sadness, disappointment, frustration, etc.  One man asked him why he had not made this known, why he had not followed the pattern of Matthew 18 to seek reconciliation and restoration of relationships.  His response: “Matthew 18 does not apply. None of you sinned against me.”

Somewhat perplexed, I inquired: “Had someone offended you because of sin would you have then followed Matthew 18?”  He assured us all that he most certainly would have done that.  And I believe him. He was (and is) a faithful man, zealous to be obedient to God.

I felt I had no choice. I had to point out the absurdity of this logic.  He was missing the whole spirit of the instructions for the process of reconciliation. True, Matthew 18 is a process that must be undertaken and which could culminate in some form of church discipline. But it is not discipline the Lord delights in.  Our Lord delights in heartfelt relationship.  What this man expressed was essentially that he would have shown more love and concern for his fellow Christians had any of us been guilty of offensive sins.  Absent that, he felt he had no responsibility to seek to restore these relationships.  In other words, he would have loved us more had we sinned against him than he did because we had not.

I suspect his dilemma is not uncommon.  In our disposable culture it seems relationships are among the easiest things to discard.  But as I posed at the beginning of this post, this is not the way things ought to be among those in Christ’s Church.  As J.I. Packer observes, in his doctrinal handbook Concise Theology:

“The task of the church is to make the invisible Kingdom visible through faithful Christian living and witness-bearing.”

I think Packer sums it up beautifully.  Our task is to embody the values and principles before a watching world. By doing so we become a living demonstration of the way things ought to be – and one day will be.  As we live this out, perhaps especially in relationship, we are counter-cultural – i.e. we present an alternative to the culture in which we live.

So how should we respond when we feel we have drifted apart from others in our church? How, practically, do we honor God with our relationships?

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A Question of Universalism

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For those following discussions of the recent posts, but who want a clearer understanding of what Universalism actually means, below you will find a good explanation from theologian J.I. Packer:

A universalist is someone who believes that every human being whom God has created or will create will finally come to enjoy the everlasting salvation into which Christians enter here and now. Universalism is the recognized name for this belief. . . .

Among Christian theological options it appears as an extreme optimism of grace, or perhaps of nature, and sometimes, it seems, of both. But in itself it is a revisionist challenge to orthodoxy, whether Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Protestant evangelical; for the church has officially rated universalism a heresy ever since the second Council of Constantinople (the fifth ecumenical council, A.D. 553), when the doctrine of apokatastasis (the universal return to God and restoration of all souls) that Origen taught was anathematized.

This passage comes from J. I. Packer’s “Universalism: Will Everyone Ultimately Be Saved? in Hell Under Fire, ed. Morgan and Peterson (Zondervan, 2004), p. 170.

Thanks to Justin Taylor for originally posting this piece.

Saved From What?

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Several years ago I was asked by a neighbor couple to meet with them for marriage counseling.  They were a pleasant couple, so I willingly agreed to assist them in any way I could.  Early during our first meeting I asked each to tell me about their spiritual journeys.  Hers was simple but heart-felt.  His… well that was a whole different story:

“I walked the isle once when I was in high school. So I guess I’m ‘saved’.  I don’t think about it much.”

When I inquired why he had “walked the isle”, he responded:

“Well, our whole baseball team was visiting this church – we do it every year – and my coach told us it would be a good thing to do, to walk the isle.  So I did.  That’s when I ‘got saved’.”

Taking the opportunity to dig a little deeper I inquired: “Saved from what?”  He paused for a moment, scratched his chin, and mused:

“That’s a good question….” 

I thought so. That’s why I had asked.  It just seems to me that if we are going to go around saying we “got saved” it might make sense to have some idea of what we got saved from.  (I didn’t have the heart at that moment to ask the other part of that question: What did you ‘get saved’ for? )

J.I. Packer offers a thoughtful response to the question I asked that day:

“What are believers saved from? 

  • From their former position under the wrath of God, the dominion of sin, and the power of death.  (i.e. Saved from God.)
  • From their natural condition of being mastered by the world, the flesh and the devil.  (i.e. Saved from Ourselves & Our Enemy.)
  • From the fears that a sinful life engenders, and from the many vicious habits that were part of it. 

How are believers saved from these things? 

Through Christ, and in Christ.  Our salvation involves

  1. first, Christ dying for us, and
  2. second, Christ living in us and we living in Christ, united with Him in His death and risen life. 

This vital union, which is sustained by the Spirit from the divine side and by faith from our side, and which is formed in and through our new birth, presupposes covenantal union in the sense of our eternal election in Christ.”

So, thanks to J.I. Packer,  if  you were not already, you now will have something to offer if I (or someone else) asks you: “What were you saved from?”   And thanks to J.I. Packer, we now also have something of substance worthy of our meditation.  If we think about these truths, we soon, like the psalmist, will freely declare:

My salvation and my honor depend on God;
   he is my mighty rock, my refuge.  –Psalm 62.7

Building a Bridge to Puritan Days

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In Building a Bridge to the 18th Century, author Neil Postman suggests that in many ways we have not so much advanced, as a culture, as we have drifted over the years. Postman seems to believe we would do well to return to and reconnect with our philosophical roots and rebuild upon them.

I might say the same thing Spiritually and Theologically.

Like Postman I look to the early-to-mid 18th Century.  But I also go back a little further than he does.  I suggest we return some of our attention to the 16th & 17th Centuries too.

In particular I  believe we benefit by building a bridge back to the Puritans.

Now I realize, for many people the idea of learning from the Puritans is as appealing as black snow.  For some, the very notion seems ugly and distasteful. (The Puritans were… well, puritanical, weren’t they?) But I wish this was not such a prevalent view.  I am not ashamed to admit that the Puritans are part of my spiritual heritage.  In some company I might even refer to myself as a Neo-Puritan.  From my perspective, contemporary disregard for the Puritan is our loss.

I understand some of the stains on the Puritan reputation is deserved. It was earned by a representative few who were… idiots. (i.e. Salem Witch Trials)  But those folks were not a sufficient sample group by which to judge the entire lot.  Sure they held some of the same principles as their Puritan predecessors, but they were a warped expression, at the tail end of a movement, influenced at least as much by superstition and fear as by their Faith traditions.  But because of the antics of these relative few fanatics the whole Puritan tradition has been getting a perpetual bad rap. And I suspect that mistaken notions about the Puritans will endure, at least for as long as our perceptions continue to be influenced by erroneous and distorted PR offered by such sources as Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter.

J.I. Packer, in an essay titled Why We Need the Puritans, which is also the Introduction to his book A Quest for Godliness, outlines a handful of lessons contemporary Christians would do well to learn from these besmirched people of the past:

  • Integration of Daily Life
  • Quality of Spiritual Experience
  • Passion for Effective Action
  • Program for Family Stability
  • Sense of Human Worth
  • Ideal of Church Renewal

A great introduction to the Puritans has been provided by the folks at The Resurgence. They have compiled a series of short articles, by Winfield Bevins, under the title Lessons from the Puritans:

Even if your impression of the Puritans has been shaped by Miller or Hawthorne, I hope you will give some consideration to these short introductory essays.  I am confidnet you will be pleasantly surprised by the positive legacy these folks have left us.

What is God Like?

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What is God like?  Describe to me the God you say you believe in. 

In the first chapter of his best selling book, Crazy Love, Francis Chan challenges his readers to ponder who God is. “Who is it that you are praying to?” Chan wants us to ask.  I really appreciate that challenge and that exercise because, quite frankly, I am not sure most people, even in our churches, can offer a substantial answer.

J.I. Packer wrote:

“Those who know God have great thoughts of Him.”

Donald Carson wrote:

“The better we know God, the more we will want all of our existence to revolve around him, and we will see that the only goals and plans that really matter are those that are somehow tied to God himself, and to our eternity with him.”

How well do you know God?

While there is no substitute for Scripture, sometimes the insights of others can help us notice things that we might otherwise not see. Like a tourguide who has navigated a trail many times is able to point out things of importance, of beauty, and of danger, so is one who has walked with God and given himself to careful study of God.

I have found the following books are faithful to Scriptureand helpful in shaping my knowledge of God:

Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer 

Attributes of God by A.W. Tozer

Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul

The Pleasures of God by John Piper

Knowing God by J.I. Packer

God Made Us to Pray

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a-man-brought-to-his-knees

While studying this afternoon I stumbled upon this thought from J.I. Packer:

It is not too much to say that God made us to pray; that prayer is (not the easiest, but) the most natural activity in which in which we ever engage; and that prayer is the measure of a man in God’s sight. ‘What a man is alone on his knees before God,’ said the saintly Murray McCheyne, ‘that he is, and no more.’

Prayer is…

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Prayer…is a confessing of impotence and need, an acknowledging of helplessness and dependence, and an invoking of the mighty power of God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves… God means us… to recognize and confess our impotence, and to tell Him that we rely on Him alone, and to plead with Him to glorify His name.

It is His way regularly to withhold His blessings until His people start to pray.

–J.I. Packer, Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God

Scarlett Letter Today

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Inspired by an analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlett Letter, on NPR’s All Things Considered, my friend Nathan Lewis probes beyond the literary and sociologic interests offered from the program.  Nathan asks two striking questions:

  • “Have we learned from Hawthorne’s scathing presentation of hypocrissy?”
  • “Would Hester [Prynne] be welcome in our community of faith?”

I want to think through both of these questions.

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