A Mutually Committed Lifestyle

J.I. Packer’s reflection on his book, Knowing God.

“But there is one defect I do see. In addressing my readers as individuals, trying as best I can to single them out and search their hearts before God, I fail to show that it is only as one gives oneself in human relationships, in the home, in friendships, with neighbors, as members of Christian groups and teams–in relationships that go sometimes right and sometimes wrong, as all our relationships do–that experiential knowledge of God becomes real and deep. For ordinary people, to be a hermit is not the way! The buttoned-up Christian “loner” who keeps aloof and reads books like this (or just the Bible!) may pick up true notions of God as well as anyone else may, but only the Christian sharer, who risks being hurt in order to take and give the maximum in fellowship and who sometimes does get hurt as a result, ever knows much of God himself in experiential terms. This perspective, so clear in the Psalms (to which, perhaps, my book should be seen as a preamble, or maybe a footnote), is so vital that I am very much at fault for not having made more of it. But if groups use this study guide, as is intended, that in itself may yet induce the necessary open and mutually committed lifestyle which I failed to mark out in the exposition. I hope and pray so, anyway.”

Knowing God Study Guide by J. I. Packer page 6

Sincere thanks to reader John B. for sharing this inspiring thought with me.