The Sojourn

Tag: What I’m Reading

  • “To what end does he bother to speak to us?”

    JI Packer

    The truly staggering answer which the Bible gives to this question is that God’s purpose in revelation is to make friends with us. It was to this end that He created us rational beings, bearing his image, able to think and hear and speak and love; He wanted there to be genuine personal affection and friendship, two-sided, between himself and us—a relation, not like that between a man and his dog, but like that of a father to his son, or a husband to his wife. Loving friendship between two persons has no ulterior motive; it is an end in itself. And this is God’s end in revelation.  

    — J.I. Packer, God Has Spoken, 50

  • The Surest Means to the Greatest End

    Jen Wilkin

    Someone asked me recently, after learning I was a Bible teacher, if I was a God-worshiper or a Bible-worshipper. The question didn’t come as a complete surprise. When you spend as much time as I do asking people to care about knowing their Bibles, someone is bound to ask if you have lost sight of the forest for the trees. My answer was simple: I want to be conformed to the image of God. How can I become conformed to an image that I never behold? I am not a Bible-worshipper, but I cannot truly be a God-worshipper without loving the Bible deeply and reverently. Otherwise, I worship an unknown god.

    Jen Wilkin, Women of the Word, p. 147

  • How Patience Promotes Learning

    Jen Wilkin

    We love “aha” moments—those moments when something that has confused us suddenly makes sense. What we sometimes overlook about “aha moments” is that they occur after a significant period of feeling lost. Could it be that those periods of feeling lost were actually preparing us for the understanding that was eventually going to come? Could it be that feeling lost is one way God humbles us when we come to his Word, knowing that in due time he will exalt our understanding?

    —Jen Wilkin, Women of the Word, p. 78–79