{"id":5214,"date":"2010-11-30T10:42:30","date_gmt":"2010-11-30T18:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=5214"},"modified":"2015-11-02T20:08:18","modified_gmt":"2015-11-03T04:08:18","slug":"knowing-god-crucial-to-living-as-a-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2010\/11\/knowing-god-crucial-to-living-as-a-christian\/","title":{"rendered":"Knowing God, Crucial to Living as a Christian"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Knowing_God_Packer_01_165px.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-5215\" title=\"Knowing_God_Packer_01_165px\" src=\"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Knowing_God_Packer_01_165px.jpg\" border=\"0\/\" alt=\"Knowing God Packer\" hspace=\"9\" width=\"165\" height=\"228\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nEminent Christian theologian J.I. Packer&#8217;s best known book is <em>Knowing God<\/em>.  In the book he emphasizes that a lifelong pursuit of knowing God should embody the Christian&#8217;s existence. According to Packer, however, Christians have become enchanted by modern skepticism and have joined the gigantic conspiracy of misdirection by failing to put first things first.<\/p>\n<p>11\/30\/2010 &#8211; Chuck Colson &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>According to Packer, studying the nature and character of God isn\u2019t, as many Christians suppose, abstract and theoretical, but, instead, the most practical project we can undertake. This knowledge is crucial to living as a Christian.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, attempting to live the Christian life without this knowledge isn\u2019t only foolish, it\u2019s a kind of self-cruelty\u2014denying ourselves the riches of our own faith. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Packer lists five \u201cfoundation principles\u201d about this knowledge:<\/p>\n<p><strong>First<\/strong>, God has spoken to man, and the Bible is His word given to us to make us wise unto salvation.<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"http:\/\/rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/cm?lt1=_blank&#038;bc1=FFFFFF&#038;IS2=1&#038;bg1=FFFFFF&#038;fc1=000000&#038;lc1=0000FF&#038;t=ezbooks&#038;o=1&#038;p=8&#038;l=as1&#038;m=amazon&#038;f=ifr&#038;md=10FE9736YVPPT7A0FBG2&#038;asins=0830816496\" style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" scrolling=\"no\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" frameborder=\"0\" align=right><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Second<\/strong>, God is Lord and King over His world.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Third<\/strong>, God is savior, acting through Jesus Christ to rescue believers from the guilt and power of sin.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fourth<\/strong>, God is triune, the work of salvation is done through the actions of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n<p>And <strong>fifth<\/strong>, godliness means responding to God\u2019s revelation in trust and obedience.<\/p>\n<p>Clearly for Packer, faith is not an emotional response that is devoid of specific content. On the contrary, the life we live is the result of what we know and of our God-empowered efforts to put what we have learned into practice.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been thirty-seven years since \u201cKnowing God\u201d sat for weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. If anything, it\u2019s more relevant today than ever. While there is a growing interest in worldview and the Christian mind, this interest contrasts alongside a subjective and experientially-oriented Christianity. One that bears little resemblance to historical Christianity.<\/p>\n<p>Full article available here: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/opinion\/2010\/11\/24\/john-stossel-lost-lesson-thanksgiving\/3\" target=\"_blank\">BreakPoint<\/a> <em>(edits made for brevity)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eminent Christian theologian J.I. Packer&#8217;s best known book is Knowing God. In the book he emphasizes that a lifelong pursuit of knowing God should embody the Christian&#8217;s existence. According to Packer, however, Christians have become enchanted by modern skepticism and have joined the gigantic conspiracy of misdirection by failing to put first things first. 11\/30\/2010 &#8230; <a title=\"Knowing God, Crucial to Living as a Christian\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2010\/11\/knowing-god-crucial-to-living-as-a-christian\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Knowing God, Crucial to Living as a Christian\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[125,68,35,22,126],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-christianity","category-philosophy","category-religion-general","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}