J.I. Packer (1926–2020)

Bible scholar, author, professor, and speaker James Innell (“J.I.”) Packer (@DrJIPacker), died July 17 in Vancouver, British Columbia, five days shy of his 94th birthday.

[Browse the many books written by J.I. Packer]

Named in 2005 by TIME magazine one of the 25 most influential evangelicals, Packer authored his first book in 1958, Fundamentalism and the Word of God, as a defense of the Bible’s authority. He firmly believed in the inerrancy of Scripture. He went on to become the general editor of the English Standard Version (ESV) Bible translation.

In a 2015 article in CT, Packer explained how he “learned to live joyfully” thanks to the book of Ecclesiastes. He wrote, “As I had to learn long ago [from a childhood accident that left Packer with a permanent dent in his forehead], discovering how under God ordinary things can bring joy is the cure for cynicism.” He referenced Ecclesiastes 2:24, 8:15, and 9:9 as the “right foundation” for the “theology of joy.” Packer concluded his public ministry in 2016 when he became unable to read and travel due to going blind from macular degeneration.

In his CT article, Packer wrote, “Psalms teach us how to worship; Proverbs, how to behave; Job, how to suffer; Song of Solomon, how to love; and Ecclesiastes, how to live.”

On his reverence of the Bible, he wrote, “The Scriptures are the lifeline God throws us in order to ensure he and we stay connected while the rescue is in process” and “Infallible denotes the quality of never deceiving or misleading and so means wholly trustworthy and reliable; inerrant means wholly true. Scripture is termed infallible and inerrant to express the conviction that all its teaching is the utterance of God who cannot lie, whose word, once spoken, abides for ever, and that therefore it may be trusted implicitly.”

A professor at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia since 1979, Packer’s last teaching position there was as the Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology. The school’s article about Packer’s life says, “Jim met his wife, Kit, a nurse, in 1952 at a conference. Seeking to reconnect afterwards, he wrote to her under the guise of wanting advice for a walking trip in Wales, her home country. She saw through the ploy but corresponded with him regardless….Jim loved jazz, trains, and mystery novels. Locomotives were a lifelong fascination; he said trains (along with trees and waterfalls) evoked ‘his longing for the transcendent’….Jim is survived by Kit, their three children, Ruth, Naomi, and Martin, and two grandsons.”

Read “Remembering J. I. Packer (1926–2020)” at Crossway and J. I. Packer, ‘Knowing God’ Author, Dies at 93” at CT.

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