Biblical veracity and biblical authority are bound up together. Only truth can have final authority to determine belief and behavior, and Scripture cannot have such authority further than it is true. A factually and theologically trustworthy Bible could still impress us as a presentation of religious experience and expertise, but clearly, if we cannot affirm its total truthfulness, we cannot claim that it is all God’s testimony and teaching, given to control our convictions and conduct.

— J.I. Packer (1926–2020), Theologe und Autor

J.I. Packer

James Innell Packer (1926–2020) war ein britisch-kanadischer anglikanischer Theologe und Autor, der nach Stationen in England langjährig am Regent College in Vancouver lehrte. Er verband puritanisch geprägte reformierte Dogmatik mit praktischer Frömmigkeit, verfasste das Standardwerk »Gott erkennen« und wirkte maßgeblich an der Chicago-Erklärung zur biblischen Irrtumslosigkeit mit. Für Bibelleser gilt er bis heute als prägender Vermittler klassischer reformatorischer Theologie, wenngleich seine Beteiligung an der ökumenischen Initiative »Evangelicals and Catholics Together« (1994) unter Konservativen zu scharfen Kontroversen führte.

All quotes by J.I. Packer (48)

More on this topic

[The Bible is] shallow enough for a child not to drown, yet deep enough for an elephant to swim.
Augustine of Hippo

A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.
Unknown

The Bible in the pulpit must never supersede the Bible at home.
John Charles Ryle

The Bible is almost bursting with good news for bad people.
Corrie ten Boom

I read the Bible the way I harvest my apple tree: I shake it, and what falls down and is ripe, I take. The rest I leave hanging for now.
Martin Luther

The Bible is the cradle wherein Christ is laid.
Martin Luther

The law is divine and holy. Let the law have its glory, but yet no law, be it never so divine and holy, ought to teach me that I am justified, and shall live through it. I grant it may teach me that I ought to love God and my neighbor; also to live in love, soberness, patience, etc., but it ought not to show me how I should be delivered from sin, the devil, death, and hell. Here I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel, which teaches me, not what I ought to do but what Jesus Christ the Son of God hath done for me: that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel wills me to receive this, and to believe it. And this is the truth of the gospel. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.
Martin Luther

Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories.
Madeleine L'Engle

All quotes · lumen.bible