Knowing God - J.I. Packer Audiobook

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• 
  Silesian
  August 29th, 2020
  

  Just read the Bible. Why would you want someone to tell you what to think instead of making your own opinions?

  Bible is exceedingly straightforward. God seldom used metaphors or any other convoluted speech. It’s mostly “go there”, “do that”, “don’t do that”, and sometimes even “hire this specific guy to do this specific job”.

  Answers to all questions like “what is good and evil”, “where does evil come from”, or “what to do with adulterers”, are given in open text.

  You may not like a lot of what you’ll read in the Bible, and that’s probably why Mr. Packer wrote his book.

  Knowing God - J.I. Packer
• 
  caesar963
  August 29th, 2020
  

  

  Well, Caesar ain’t no Evangelical, nor is he no Biblical scholar, but, in the Bible Jesus continuously employs parable, allegory, metaphor, simile, and various complex modes of expression. There is also extensive use of inversion, antithesis, and rhetorical devices in the Gospels and elsewhere.

  As for the Bible being “exceedingly straightforward” - the Bible is akin to a library of generic forms. It features, inter alia, historical narrative, laws, poetry, wisdom literature, prophecy, apocalyptic literature, the aforementioned Gospels, epistles, and others.

  Each genre must be approached using discrete interpretive criteria. One approach will not serve in another form, etc. Hence the existence of Biblical commentaries.

  As to “just read the Bible” - here I’ll just observe that Jesus did not leave a book, what remained was a rich, multifarious tradition, which was continued until the diverse texts were formulated into a single, complex text.
  But then, as I say, I ain’t no Biblical scholar…

  Thanks again, rmoor!

  Knowing God - J.I. Packer
• 
  spaniel1
  August 31st, 2020
  

  

  Thank you!

  Knowing God - J.I. Packer
• 
  RPM7
  September 2nd, 2020
  

  

  Thank you for this!

  Knowing God - J.I. Packer
• 
  rivatej428
  November 15th, 2020
  

  

  Well said, Caesar!

  Knowing God - J.I. Packer
• 
  GinoMan2440
  November 18th, 2022
  

  

  Ok Silesian,

  Answer this objection that atheists often bring up. Jesus taught to love your enemies and pray for those who abuse you. He also taught that unless you hate your father, mother, sister, brother, you cannot be his disciple.

  So what does this mean?

  While you’re pondering that, consider the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac. Kinda a weird story to throw in the middle of it. What was the point?

  While we’re on it, Solomon advises us in proverbs to delight in the wife of our youth. So clearly he meant the wife in our early 20s? Or is it?

  Why did the woman with an issue of blood get healed when she touched Jesus’ prayer shawl?

  We’re told that love is patient and kind by Paul, so clearly he wants us to be polite and wait for marriage to have sex right? So why is it that Isaac takes Rebecca into his tent and marries Rebecca after just meeting her? And is it a sin then and unloving to burp at the dinner table?

  The Bible was written over the span of over a thousand years by forty different authors from paupers to princes across three continents in three different languages, ending 2000 years ago with the writing of revelation. Their culture was not our culture, their way of thinking was not our way of thinking, and their languages worked differently than ours do today. They had idioms and ideas and cultural references that most of us have never seen before. And in all of it, each book is written by its author for different purposes none of which is to systematically define the faith in a straightforward way.

  Books like these are to the Bible what the gameFAQ Plot Analysis of Final Fantasy VII is to the original game. Yes, all the details are somewhere in the game, none of it is presented as a straightforward coherent narrative systematically describing the ideas and roles of the various persons through and through. For that you need study, commentary, systematic theology, and to understand the underlying languages and cultures. We don’t have that knowledge purely by reading the bible. Books like these are incredibly valuable.

  Knowing God - J.I. Packer
• 
  fikareader
  October 17th, 2025
  

  

  Thanks but a seed would be much appreciated!

  Knowing God - J.I. Packer

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