Tributes:
- Randy Alcorn
- Sam Allberry
- Dustin Benge
- Wallace Benn
- Hans Boersma
- Gerald Bray
- Don Carson
- Grant Castleberry
- Glenn Davies
- Philip De Courcy
- Jamie Dean
- Jason DeRouchie
- Mark Dever
- David Dockery
- Ligon Duncan
- John Frame
- Lee Gatiss
- Michael Haykin
- Paul Helm. Also see Helm's older piece on Packer's 'Fundamentalism' and the Word of God.
- John Hendryx
- Bruce Hindmarsh
- Rick Holland
- Chris Humfrey
- Peter Jensen
- Terry L. Johnson
- Mike Licona, Paul Copan, Dan Wallace, Gregg Monette
- David Mathis
- Conrad Mbewe
- Stephen McCaskell
- Ivan Mesa
- Al Mohler
- Tom Nettles
- Marvin Olasky
- Ray Ortlund
- Timothy Padgett
- Gavin Peacock
- Nate Pickowicz
- Peter Pike
- John Piper
- John Piper redux
- Regent College
- Leland Ryken
- Tom Schreiner
- David Short, Ben Kwashi, Leslie Thyberg, Joel Scandrett
- George Sinclair
- John Stonestreet
- Sam Storms
- Owen Strachan
- Don Sweeting
- Justin Taylor
- Erik Thoennes
- Mark Thompson
- Carl Trueman
- Carl Trueman redux
- James White
- Paul S. Williams
- Peter Williams
- Stephen Witmer
In addition, Crossway has some material about and from Packer. This includes a free ebook titled Weakness Is the Way.
Wow 2020 the year of the death of theologians and country singers.
ReplyDeleteI guess it's a good thing I'm neither. :)
DeleteOn a serious note, it's been a crazy year. All the people who have passed away from COVID too.
Yes, it's quite a sad year. The deaths from the virus and the amount of starvation people will face looking into the future in other countries. It's a troubling year.
DeleteEvangelicals and Catholics together document. No thank you.
ReplyDeleteMemo--
DeleteI would tend to agree that rapprochement with Catholics is a bit of a fool's errand. What they give with one hand they take back with another. But if you read the ECT documents, the Evangelical participants almost never sell out the orthodox faith. And they somehow got these stodgy, conservative Catholics to agree to a few startlingly Protestant-like passages:
"We agree that justification is not earned by any good works or merits of our own; it is entirely God’s gift, conferred through the Father’s sheer graciousness, out of the love that he bears us in his Son, who suffered on our behalf and rose from the dead for our justification. Jesus was “put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25). In justification, God, on the basis of Christ’s righteousness alone, declares us to be no longer his rebellious enemies but his forgiven friends, and by virtue of his declaration it is so.
"The New Testament makes it clear that the gift of justification is received through faith. “By grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). By faith, which is also the gift of God, we repent of our sins and freely adhere to the Gospel, the good news of God’s saving work for us in Christ. By our response of faith to Christ, we enter into the blessings promised by the Gospel. Faith is not merely intellectual assent but an act of the whole person, involving the mind, the will, and the affections, issuing in a changed life. We understand that what we here affirm is in agreement with what the Reformation traditions have meant by justification by faith alone ( sola fide )."
And if you're ready to give Packer the boot for daring to have a discussion with Catholics, are you also going to summarily dismiss John Woodbridge, Timothy George, Chuck Colson, Richard Land, Gerald Bray, Bill Bright, Harold O. J. Brown, Os Guinness, Thomas Oden, Richard Mouw, and Mark Noll?
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If you ask me, Jim Packer's introductory essay to John Owen's "The Death of Death in the Death of Christ" is the best 20 pages in all of Reformed literature.
I was in a mentoring group at Regent, led by Packer. I found him to be incredibly kind and gentle with a wonderfully dry wit and an exceptional clarity of intellect. When he spoke in chapel, some students described his style as too abstract to hold their attention. They preferred stories and sentiment. On the contrary, I thought he was electric.
Memo Ore
Delete"Evangelicals and Catholics together document. No thank you."
One can appreciate and benefit from J.I. Packer without agreeing with everything he said or did. For example, see what Leonardo De Chirico has said about Packer and ECT.
Great man of God. I began my theological walk in the 1950s with Packer's Fundamentalism. Along the way, I treasured his Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, Knowing God, and others. I met him three times, and he was gracious enough to endorse a couple of my books. In controversy, he was a model for me. Loved his balanced, Scriptural, and graceful writing.
ReplyDeleteI have many fond memories of being a toddler, still unable to read, and flipping through my mom's copy of "Knowing God" pretending that I was reading it. Later, when I could read a few words in school, I tried to read it, but since I was still only 5 or 6 years old, it was beyond my capabilities. At some point, we moved and I don't know what happened to the book. I presume my mom had it somewhere with her, since it was one of her favorites.
ReplyDelete