"On Sunday, October 22, 1944......it is doubtful that anyone noticed a soft-spoken, lanky, and decidedly bookish first-year university student leaving his dormitory room at Corpus Christi College and heading across Oxford for an evening Christian Union service at a local Anglican church."Of course, God noticed. In fact, although Jim Packer didn't know what was about to happen to him that evening, the Lord Jesus certainly did, just as he knew that he would use Packer mightily in the subsequent 70 years to teach, build up, strengthen and equip the church. God knew these things because he planned them. I am only one of very many people who are grateful for the plan God had for Dr. Packer in the church and in our lives individually as well.
Dr. Packer begins every class he teaches with a reminder to his students that the purpose of theology is doxology. In other words, all our learning about God should not simply result in head knowledge but in a deep desire to worship God and glorify Jesus Christ with lives of faithful obedience. No Packer class would be complete without singing God's praises together as a fitting and reverent response to the riches of Christian theology.
You can read the story of Packer's conversion here. Much of Taylor's post is adapted from an upcoming Crossway biography on J.I. Packer by Leland Ryken. The combination of a biography of this important stalwart written by such a capable author promises to be good.
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