On April 20–21, Bethlehem College & Seminary (my school) and Crossway (my favorite publisher) cohosted the Theologians on the Christian Life Conference.
Steve Nichols and Justin Taylor edit the Theologians on the Christian Life series that Crossway has published since 2012. The series is historically informed and warmly devotional.
Here are eight videos from the conference:
[Read more…] about 8 Videos from the Theologians on the Christian Life Conference
That’s what J. I. Packer calls Keswick theology. And for good reason, too. It nearly destroyed him.
For details, see my guest post today for Kevin DeYoung’s blog: “Pietistic Goofiness: How Keswick Theology Nearly Destroyed J.I. Packer.”
Update on 8/23/2017: My latest book attempts to survey and analyze “let go and let God” theology more accessibly:
So writes Mark Dever in a new book based on a conference honoring J. I. Packer at Beeson Divinity School on September 25–27, 2006:
Timothy George, ed. J. I. Packer and the Evangelical Future: The Impact of His Life and Thought. Beeson Divinity Studies. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009. [Amazon | WTS Books]
Sample pages as a PDF include the TOC, preface, and opening chapter by Alister McGrath.
Here’s the opening paragraph of Mark Dever’s chapter, entitled “J. I. Packer and Pastoral Wisdom from the Puritans”:
There are some people for whom it is an honor to be asked to honor, and J. I. Packer is certainly one of them. And this is a surprising honor, considering that I disagree with him on baptism, church, and the resources of and prospects for rapprochement between Protestants and Roman Catholics. After all, I am a fundamentalist, Calvinistic, separatist Baptist—I barely believe in rapprochement with Presbyterians! (p. 87)
In the final section of his essay, titled “Puritans on the Definition of Justification and Questions of Church Cooperation,” Dever respectfully disagrees with Packer on Evangelicals and Catholics Together (pp. 93–96).
In Packer’s response to this book’s essays, he playfully picks up a metaphor in which he is Robin Hood, Timothy George is “Little George,” etc. He writes,
I saw in my Baptist brother Mark Dever a latter-day Sheriff of Nottingham, giving me a passing grade on the doctrine of grace but a firm “F” in ecclesiology. (p. 172)
Related: Mark Dever interviewed J. I. Packer ten years ago.
J. I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1961. 126 pp.
Above are a couple cover designs for reprints of this classic book. Below is a summary and outline of the book that I prepared on March 1, 2003. [Read more…] about Summary and Outline of J. I. Packer’s “Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God”
“It was, I think, Voltaire who first observed that ever since God made man in his own image man has been trying to return the compliment. Whoever said it, it is true, and many theological mistakes have been made through likening the God of infinite power, holiness, goodness, and wisdom to finite and fallen humanity.”
These are the stirring opening words to J. I. Packer‘s essay “The Love of God: Universal and Particular,” in Still Sovereign: Contemporary Perspectives on Election, Foreknowledge, and Grace (ed. Thomas R. Schreiner and Bruce A. Ware; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 277-91.