Knowing God

How is the Book Organized?

Foreword

Modern skepticism, combined with the sacred/secular, fact/value split, has led to the church’s significant weakening due to an overwhelming ignorance of God. Those who can see what’s happening are tempted to withdraw from the institutions that don’t seem to recognize their problems or be willing to address them. This current confusion is worse than anything the church has experienced since Gnosticism in the first few centuries AD.

Part I. Know the Lord

INSERT PART SUMMARY HERE.

  1. The Study of God

    Given that we live in a world God created, we must study the one who created it, that we might live in it as he intends us to. But beware: pursuit of knowledge of God and his truths as an end in itself is problematic, leading to self-satisfied self-deception. Knowledge about God should transition to meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God. This is the charge given to all mankind; abandon it and you can waste your life and lose your soul.

  1. The People who Know their God

    The question isn’t whether we’re good at theology, or tend to live “Christianly”, but rather whether or not we have known God. Those who know God

    • have great energy for God,

    • have great thoughts of God,

    • show great boldness for God, and

    • have great contentment in God.

    They are sensitive to God’s honor and truth being jeopardized, and the defiance spurs them to action, even at personal risk. The gravity of the situation forces them to prayer. The understanding of the Lordship of Christ in all things, both now and in the future, permeates every aspect of their lives. They stand for what’s right, regardless of the consequences, and they boldly face antagonism with the utmost peace and serenity, confident in their relationship with the one in control.

  1. Knowing and Being Known

  2. The Only True God

  3. God Incarnate

  4. He Shall Testify

Part II. Behold Your God!

  1. God Unchanging

  2. The Majesty of God

  3. God Only Wise

  4. God’s Wisdom and Ours

  5. Thy Word is Truth

  6. The Love of God

  7. The Grace of God

  8. God the Judge

  9. The Wrath of God

  10. Goodness and Severity

  11. The Jealous God

Part III. If God be For Us…

  1. The Heart of the Gospel

  2. Sons of God

  3. Thou our Guide

  4. These Inward Trials

  5. The Adequacy of God

Questions

Chapters 1–2:

  1. Why does Packer describe his readers as “travelers?” How are you a traveler?

    Travelers are those walking the road of life, asking practical questions like which way to go, or how to go about whatever’s next. Packer contrasts these with the “balconeers”, who approach things only at the theoretical level, never actually getting out on the road and going anywhere. I’m a traveler in that I’ve been asking God what I’m supposed to be doing, and how I’m supposed to go about doing it.

  2. Many people think there is “no road to knowledge about God.” How do you answer that?

    This statement seems foolish on two fronts. First, if God exists, and we’re going with a standard definition of God, then he is the source of the created order. We have the ability to observe the world around us, and also have the ability to think critically and rationally, so we can use those abilities to make inferences about the creator. It seems straightforward that we can draw a handful of easy conclusions: God is creative; God is somehow both harsh and good; God is powerful; etc. Second, many religions hold that God has taken the initiative of revealing himself to mankind in various ways, often through the written word. Such writings can teach us a good deal about the one claiming to be their author, and it’s up to us to evaluate whether or not they are trustworthy. I suspect what’s actually at play behind this phrase is an epistemological assumption that “there is no road to knowledge,” period.

  3. What are the five basic truths that the book will follow?

    1. God has spoken to man, and the Bible is His Word, given to us to make us wise unto salvation.

    2. God is Lord and King over His world; He rules all things for His own glory, displaying His perfections in all that He does, in order that men and angels may worship and adore Him.

    3. God is Saviour, active in sovereign love through the Lord Jesus Christ to rescue believers from the guilt and power of sin, to adopt them as His sons, and to bless them accordingly.

    4. God is Triune; there are within the Godhead three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and the work of salvation is one in which all three act together, the Father purposing redemption, the Son securing it, and the Spirit applying it.

    5. Godliness means responding to God’s revelation in trust and obedience, faith and worship, prayer and praise, submission and service. Life must be seen and lived in the light of God’s Word. This, and nothing else, is true religion.

  4. What are the four characteristics of people who know God? Do you agree with these?

    Those who know God

    • have great energy for God,

    • have great thoughts of God,

    • show great boldness for God, and

    • have great contentment in God.

    This seems pot on, and the lack of such people does much to explain the emaciated state of the church today.

  5. How are your prayers a key to knowing your view of God?

    “Men who know their God are before anything else men who pray, and the first point where their zeal and energy for God’s glory come to expression is in their prayers[…] If, however, there is in us little energy for such prayer, and little consequent practice of it, this is a sure sign that as yet we scarcely know our God.”

    Prayer is something I’ve always struggled with. I suspect it’s because I’m very much a results motivated person, and the “results” of prayer are hard to observe and quantify. If Packer’s right here, my prayer life indicates I scarcely know God. It sounds like I need to spend more time meditating on who he is, at least as a start.

Chapters 3–4:

  1. People frequently ask questions about their meaning and purpose in life. How does Packer answer that question?

    Knowing God, which consists of

    1. listening to God’s word and receiving it as the Holy Spirit interprets it, in application to oneself;

    2. noting God’s nature and character, as his word and works reveal it;

    3. accepting his invitations, and doing what he commands; and

    4. recognizing, and rejoicing in, the love that he has shown in thus approaching one and drawing one into this divine fellowship.

  2. In what ways is knowing God like knowing a person? How is it different?

    Similar

    God is personal. You get to know him by spending quality time with him. You can know him for a lifetime and still have more to learn. You get to know him by him allowing you to.

    Different

    God isn’t physically present with us. Instead we learn of him through his written word and his revelation in creation. He’s not a peer, but is infinitely “over” us in majesty and glory.

  3. Do you really believe when you pray that you are talking to God personally? How does this impact the way you pray?

    Sometimes. In principle, yes, but not really, no. I feel like I’ve always been bad at prayer, but no matter what I’ve tried, it doesn’t feel like I’ve improved. It feels like a very one-sided conversation.

  4. What two reasons does Packer give for not using images to worship God?

    1. Images dishonor God, because they obscure his glory. They inevitably conceal most, if not all, of the truth about the personal nature and character of the divine being whom they represent.

    2. Images mislead man. The very inadequacy with which they represent him perverts our thoughts of him, and plants in our minds errors of all sorts about his character and will.

  5. Is your God the God who revealed himself in Scripture? How does Packer’s “test” help you answer this?

    Pretty darn sure. I don’t know that the test is all that useful. Is your knowledge of God focused on Jesus who reveals him? Yes, but who would answer “no” to that?

Chapters 5–6:

  1. What is “the supreme mystery with which the gospel confronts us?” Why is this such a mystery? (Chapter 5)

    The incarnation.

  2. Why should the Incarnation move us to praise God for his humility? (Chapter 5)

    Without it we are at a complete loss to fix our completely broken situation.

  3. What does it mean for “the Son of God to empty himself and become poor?” (Chapter 5)

    He restrained his divine powers to live his life in complete and total submission to the will of God the Father.

  4. How does the Gospel of John teach us about the Trinity? (Chapter 6)

    He establishes in the opening chapter that Jesus is God the Son, such that you can make sense of everything else he’s to relate to you. Toward the end, he tells you how Jesus promised to send another comforter, indicating the Holy Spirit is to carry on his work in the lives of believers from now on. The relationships within the Trinity are as follows:

    • The Son is subject to the Father, for the Son is sent by the Father in His (the Father’s) name.

    • The Spirit is subject to the Father, for the Spirit is sent by the Father in the Son’s name.

    • The Spirit is subject to the Son as well as to the Father, for the Spirit is sent by the Son as well as by the Father.

  5. How does the Holy Spirit’s work make possible the Gospel and the New Testament? (Chapter 6)

    Without the Holy Spirit the disciples went back to their prior jobs (fishing, etc.), not knowing what to do. When the Holy Spirit indwelled them at Pentecost, that’s what set the stage for the missionary nature of the church. The Spirit inspired people to preach the good news, to teach doctrine, and to write the books and letters that would become the New Testament. Without the Holy Spirit, Christianity wouldn’t have happened.

Chapters 7–10:

  1. State six aspects of God which do not change. (Chapter 7)

    1. His life.

    2. His character.

    3. His truth.

    4. His ways.

    5. His purposes.

    6. His Son.

  2. Why does God never need to “repent”? (Chapter 7)

    Repenting means revising one’s judgment and changing one’s plan of action. God never does this; He never needs to, for His plans are made on the basis of complete knowledge and control which extend to all things past, present, and future, so there can be no sudden emergencies or unlooked-for developments to take Him by surprise.

  3. What should our response be to the majesty of God? (Chapter 8)

    Rebuke our wrong thoughts about God, our wrong thoughts about ourselves, and our slowness to believe in God’s majesty.

  4. How are God’s wisdom and human wisdom different? (Chapter 9)

    Wisdom is the power to see, and the inclination to choose, the best and highest goal, together with the surest means of attaining it. God alone is naturally and entirely and invariably wise. Man is limited in his ability to do any of these things.

  5. How is human wisdom like driving a car? (Chapter 10)

    It’s trying to see and do the right things in the situation that presents itself.

  6. What effect does God’s gift of wisdom have on us? (Chapter 10)

    The effect of His gift of wisdom is to make us more humble, more joyful, more godly, more quick-sighted as to His will, more resolute in the doing of it and less troubled (not less sensitive, but less bewildered) than we were at the dark and painful things of which our life in this fallen world is full.

Chapters 11–13:

  1. What two facts are assumed in every biblical passage? (Chapter 11)

    God is king and he speaks.

  2. In the “Believe and Obey” section, how does Packer describe a Christian? How well do you think this describes you? (Chapter 11)

    He is a man who acknowledges and lives under the word of God. He submits without reserve to the word of God written in ‘the Scripture of truth’ (Dan. 10:21), believing the teaching, trusting the promises, following the commands. His eyes are to the God of the Bible as his Father, and the Christ of the Bible as his Saviour. He will tell you, if you ask him, that the word of God has both convinced him of sin and assured him of forgiveness. His conscience, like Luther’s, is captive to the word of God, and he aspires, like the psalmist, to have his whole life brought into line with it[…] The promises are before him as he prays, and the precepts are before him as he moves among men. He knows that in addition to the word of God spoken directly to him in the Scriptures, God’s word has also gone forth to create, and control, and order things around him; but since the Scriptures tell him that all things work together for his good, the thought of God ordering his circumstances brings him only joy. He is an independent fellow, for he uses the word of God as a touchstone by which to test the various views that are put to him, and he will not touch anything which he is not sure that Scripture sanctions.

    I’d say that’s a decent description of me.

  3. What three points about God’s love does Packer highlight from Romans 5:5? (Chapter 12)

    1. Paul is not talking about faint and fitful impressions, but of deep and overwhelming ones.

    2. The knowledge of the love of God, having once flooded our hearts, still fills them now.

    3. The instilling of this knowledge is described as part of the regular ministry of the Spirit to those who receive Him.

  4. Read through the final section of Chapter 12 (“Amazing Love”). Are there areas of your life that you need to open up more to God’s love?

    I could stand to trust more that God has placed me in our current circumstances for a purpose.

  5. What does Packer mean when he says, “Those who suppose that the doctrine of God’s grace tends to encourage moral laxity… do not know what they are talking about”? (Chapter 13)

    If you are indeed a recipient of God’s grace, you cannot help but respond accordingly, and moral laxity becomes an impossibility.

Chapters 14–16

  1. What four ideas are involved in God being the judge? (Chapter 14)

    ANSWER

  2. What is the relation of Jesus Christ to God’s judgment? (Chapter 14)

    ANSWER

  3. Can you explain God’s wrath? (Chapter 15)

    ANSWER

  4. According to Romans, what is God’s wrath? (Chapter 15)

    ANSWER

  5. What three lessons does Packer draw from his consideration of the goodness and severity of God? How can we apply each one? (Chapter 16)

    ANSWER

Chapters 17–18

  1. Packer describes two types of jealousy. How is the second type a positive virtue? (Chapter 17)

    ANSWER

  2. What are the practical consequences of God’s jealousy for those who profess to be God’s people? (Chapter 17)

    ANSWER

  3. What does the word “propitiation” mean? (Chapter 18)

    ANSWER

  4. Explain in a sentence for each how the following help us understand propitiation. (Chapter 18)

    • The driving force in Jesus’ life.

      ANSWER

    • What of those who reject God?

      ANSWER

    • What is peace?

      ANSWER

    • The dimensions of God’s love.

      ANSWER

    • The glory of God.

      ANSWER

Chapters 19–20

  1. Is God the Father of all people? What sort of “sonship” can a human being have? (Chapter 19)

    ANSWER

  2. Why is the “Fatherhood” of God such an important concept? (Chapter 19)

    ANSWER

  3. What are the four aspects of God as Father Packer describes? (Chapter 19)

    ANSWER

  4. How does our adoption of the Father show us the richness of God’s grace? (Chapter 19)

    ANSWER

  5. In what ways do you struggle with God’s guidance in your life? (Chapter 20)

    ANSWER

  6. How does God guide you? (Chapter 20)

    ANSWER

  7. What are the six common pitfalls we have about God’s guidance? (Chapter 20)

    ANSWER