Packer Knowing God Analysis

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“Knowing God” is divided into three sections. The first section covers issues such as why studying the word of God is important, idolatry and how it can affect the knowledge we have of God, the mystery of the Incarnation, and the nature and the importance of the Holy Spirit. It asks questions such, do you know God and what does it mean to know God. The second section list God’s attributes. It touches on God’s unchanging nature, His majesty, wisdom and gift of wisdom, His Word, love, grace, judgement, wrath, relation between His goodness and severity, and His Jealousy. The third section takes us to the heart of the gospel, shows us the significance of adoption and what it means to be Sons of God, teaches us how God guides his believers, shows …show more content…
This is also his greatest strength. Everything he states he backs up with biblical scripture. The only true weakness I can note is that the third section was my least favorite, but with that being said, it still contained valuable and great information. This may also be attributed to knowing that I was almost through with the book and would have to move onto writing this review. So really the only weakness I can find, is actually a weakness of mine. Packer’s thesis in “Knowing God” in short is that just because we know of God or know about God does not mean that we in fact know God. Packer spends a whole chapter establishing this fact. “One does not know a living thing till one knows not merely its past history but how it is likely to react and behave under specific circumstances” (Page 35). He then spends the rest of the book elaborating on the attributes of God and how we can apply these to know God better than just knowing of him. We also have to realized we cannot simply just know God, God allows himself to be known to …show more content…
Although I believe this book could be given to someone who is questioning their faith or doesn’t have a personal relationship with God and wants to know more of him, the fact that God is real and His Word is true is assumed from the very first chapter.
The main source that Packer used in “Knowing God” was the Bible. At the end there is six full pages of the list of Biblical Passages he used throughout the book. He also uses various hymns throughout the book. On top of those he quoted others such as; Richard Baxter, Isaac Watts, Samuel Davies, Doddridge, Jonathan Edwards, A.W. Pink, John Murray, James Buchanan, Charles Wesley, Elisabeth Elliot, John Newton, Edward Elton, Samuel Clark, Hannah Whitall Smith, and C.H. Dodd. I am sure there where some I looked over or didn’t make notations

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