Book Review: Knowing God

"Not many of us, I think, would ever naturally say that we have known God. The words imply a definiteness and matter-of-factness of experience to which most of us, if we are honest, have to admit that we are still strangers. We claim, perhaps, to have a testimony, and can rattle off our conversion story with the best of them; we say that we know God- this, after all, is what evangelicals are expected to say; but would it occur to us to say, without hesitation, and with reference to particular events in our personal history, that we have known God? I doubt it, for I suspect that with most of us experience of God has never become so vivid as that." Knowing God, 24-25

So begins the second chapter of J.I. Packer's classic work, Knowing God. Knowing God is a biblical study of the character of God; who He is, what He is doing, and how He works in the world and the individual lives of His people. It is Scripturally rich and accurate, and will expand any readers understanding of the God they claim to know.

Packer's questions for the reader throughout the work are piercing. Do you really know God? Are you worshiping God as He is presented in the Bible, or are you worshiping a god of your own imagination? If you know the LORD, why is your heart cold and your life unchanged? I was painfully convicted the further I read, yet to my own shame, not as convicted or grieved as I ought to have been.

This is a book that I will be referring to again and again. It requires thoughtful, slow, and deep drinking in. I couldn't urge you zealously enough to seek it out and study. Loaded with Scripture, it is the perfect tool for personal Bible study. If my recommendation isn't enough to convince you, it also comes highly commended by Elisabeth Elliot, R.C Sproul, Billy Graham, Michael Card, Joni Erickson Tada, Chuck Swindoll, and countless others.

"This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."
John 17:3