# Fun Facts About J. I. Packer



## bookslover (Oct 18, 2015)

I'm almost finished reading _J. I. Packer: An Evangelical Life_ by Leland Ryken (Wheaton: Crossway, 2015). Here are a few nuggets:

1. Packer is an early-bird: he rises at 4 or 5 AM and is usually in bed by 10 PM. (Don't know if this is still true now that he's 89.)

2. He usually writes most of his books and articles at home, in the morning hours - on an old manual typewriter!

3. He has one sibling, a sister, Margaret, who is 3 years younger.

4. Packer and his wife, Kit, have 3 adopted children.

5. He is a meticulous and careful writer, and is not fond of editors "tinkering" with his work.

6. His first book, _"Fundamentalism" and the Word of God_ (1958) sold 20,000 copies in its first year and has never been out of print.

7. He signed a contract with Tyndale House Publishers in about 1985 to write a systematic theology, and is finally getting around to it: "'I would like to survey the whole of Christian doctrine at what I call the 'higher catechism level' - the level at which one addresses thoughtful laypeople who are not technically educated in theology, but who want to know their faith accurately and to have a solid grounding in Christian basics.' Packer is, in fact, making progress on this book, which has 'reconceived itself in [his] mind' from when he first signed a contract for it [around 30 years ago now! - RZ]. His recent interest in catechism has 'given the project new life.'" (p. 351).

8. Ecclesiastes is his favorite book of the Bible.

9. He enjoys hot and spicy food - so hot or spicy that he has to wipe the sweat from his brow after eating it.

It's a very interesting bio, overall.


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## Philip (Oct 18, 2015)

Packer is what I want to be when I grow up. He also headed up a task force last year that produced a New Catechism for the Anglican Church in North America.


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## DMcFadden (Oct 18, 2015)

Ecclesiastes his favorite book? Naturally. Considering all of the books with a Packer blurb on them, where else can you find 12:12 - "Of making many books there is no end . . ."


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## Wayne (Oct 18, 2015)

It would be interesting to see a bibliography of just those works where Packer has provided the Introduction or Preface.

Picking up Burrough's Exposition on Hosea today, I saw Packer did the Introduction for the SDG edition.

Aside: Of wider interest for Puritan studies, Packer states that "the exposition of Hosea was produced against a background that had in it the following items, which perhaps should be formally listed:



> 1. The Puritan belief in a God who is great and gracious, a God of judgment and mercy, awesomely holy, constantly provoked to anger by human sin, yet at the same time long-suffering in compassion and full of kindness to the humble. The Bible is His word of instruction, in which He delineates Himself as He truly is, and Jesus Christ is His Son, come at the Father's bidding to save sinners.
> 2. The general acquaintance with the New Testament doctrine of Jesus Christ the divine mediator of the covenant of grace, our Prophet, Priest, and King, which could be presupposed among urban laymen in Puritan circles of influence by the 1640's.
> 3. The long-standing Puritan belief that England had been specially called and chosen by God to become a model of national communal godliness before the eyes of the watching world: a vocation that was bound to bring chastening judgments should England fail to rise to God's demands.
> 4. The long-standing Puritan belief that the work of reformation required, on the on hand, exact conformity of the structures and procedures of the Church of England to patterns set forth in Scripture, and on the other hand, a consistent and whole-hearted practice of personal godliness by all Englishmen. From this it followed that reformation in England was as yet only half done, and that all Christians should embrace a common purpose of seeking to complete it.
> ...



I take the trouble to reproduce that here since, if correct, then Packer's six-point list provides a generally applicable framework for reading other Puritan authors.


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