Knowing God

The first preface, originally included in the 20th anniversary edition of Knowing God, starts with an admission that Packer is startled by the book’s success: “[…] I thought of it as a study book that could hardly be of general interest” (9). The impetus for the book was a request from the editor of Evangelical Magazine for a series of articles on God, but the prompt was more than just a general appeal for theological content. What the editor wanted, Packer writes, was a set of straight-talking pieces that did not dance around difficult matters of faith. The articles were to be “[…] angled for honest, no-nonsense readers who were fed up with facile Christian verbiage” (9). Packer also notes the only significant addition to the 20th anniversary’s revision, which was a short piece appended to Chapter 4 to address concerns from some readers’ letters about the argument made in that chapter (of which more will be said in the Chapter 4 Summary below).

The book continues with the original 1973 preface, Packer acknowledges the serial nature of the Knowing God’s original composition as magazine articles, comparing it to “a string of beads” (11). They were written to be practical and applicable to the Christian life, but not meant to be a comprehensive treatment of Christian theology.