The Classics

Remember the days of long ago; think about the generations past. Ask your father and he will inform you. Inquire of your elders, and they will tell you. Deuteronomy 32:7

In English classes students are encouraged to read the classics: Shakespeare, Chaucer, Jane Austen, John Steinbeck, etc. But when was the last time you picked up a classic theology book? Perhaps something by Francis Schaffer, Louis Berkhof, John Calvin, E. M. Bounds, John Stott, A. W. Tozer, or J. Oswald Sanders.

I go back to the classics for new perspective, for encouragement from someone who has already been there. One of the most memorable and freeing passages for me was penned by J. I. Packer in his classic book Knowing God:

There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery can now disillusion him about me, in a way I am so often disillusioned about myself. . . . There is, certainly, great cause for humility in the thought that he sees all the twisted things about me that my fellow humans do not see (and am I glad!), and that he sees more corruption in me than that which I see in myself (which, in all conscience, is enough). There is, however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that, for some unfathomable reason, he wants me as his friend, and desires to be my friend, and has given his Son to die for me in order to realize this purpose. We cannot work these thoughts out here, but merely to mention them is enough to show how much it means to know not merely that we know God, but that he knows us.^a

God knows all about me. He knows every hair on my head and every thought on my mind. He knows that I am utterly imperfect. He knows, yet he still loves me!

Go to the classics section of the bookstore, where you will be challenged in your faith by those who have lived it before you.