Buying Knowing God

I have finally found a work of contemporary classic Christian literature that I really enjoy. While I like the ideas of the greats like Bonhoeffer, Lewis, Piper, and others, I have never actually enjoyed the process of reading their books. Packer's book, though, is thorough without ever being repetitive, covering a variety of topics with a skillful blend of academic and compassionate insights. He weaves in long quoted hymns that really add nothing to his discussions, but they are easy to skim or skip entirely, so the harm is minimized. The book really is a tour through various aspects of who God is and what it means to follow Him, and it's something I could recommend to anyone interested in Christianity.

I was warned about chapter four before I started this book, but it still struck me as the most controversial. Packer interprets the second commandment's prohibition on images to mean that Christians should not in any way try to graphically represent God, not even with an image of Jesus on a crucifix, not even with an image in our minds as we pray. This is a big deal, and I think Packer goes a bit overboard here. It is true that no image can completely capture God's whole character, and we need to be aware of the limitations (and I'll admit, some of those limitations can be dangerous, as with liberals and conservatives who will refuse to see Jesus as the returning conquering king or the humble Galilean peasant, when in fact those are both aspects of his nature), but does that mean that Jesus was breaking a commandment when he told the parable of the prodigal son and clearly represented God as a loving father, or when he told the dramatic parable of the sheep and the goats and clearly represented Himself as a king on a throne? I appreciate Packer's enthusiasm to give God all the glory due to Him, and I agree with just about every other point that Packer makes in this book, but I think chapter four is a misfire.

I highly recommend this book. It can be exhausting to read more than two chapters in a sitting, so you may want to space it out (perhaps read a chapter or two a week and meet with a friend to discuss them), but it is worth the time and effort.Get more detail about Knowing God.