Many are familiar with J. I. Packer’s magnificent book “Knowing God.” It is a classic which stands alone in modern Evangelical writing. Having sold well over a million copies in North America alone, many have found it a foundational source of sound, Reformational and Biblical theology.

With all I owe to that book as formative for myself when I first read it in the early 1970’s, Packer’s God’s Plans for You – should be on the bookshelf of every Christian. Better, it ought to be read by every Christian. More than once.

When make my poor attempts at writing poetry, I have a device I refer to constantly. Usually down the left column of a yellow legal pad, I write the alphabet. One letter on each line. I refer to it constantly in finding rhyming words. A primitive but useful tool for me. And it reminds me also each time – that every word written in the English language is comprised of those same 26 letters. They are the most basic building blocks of communication. Nothing is written apart from them. We need them and refer to them in every word we speak, read or write. They are indispensable.

Now there are certain truths which occupy a similar role in our thought processes. Fully aware of them or not, there are foundational concepts which form the lens through which we view and interpret everything. This is true in the world around us, and, more importantly, in regard to our understanding of God and his relationship to this world, ourselves and all of life.

What Packer’s exceptional volume – God’s Plans for You – does, in my humble opinion, is serve as a sort of theological alphabet of Biblical Christianity.

I first read this treasure several decades ago, and just finished (perhaps) my 3rd reading of it today. And I am more convinced of its usefulness now than in my previous journeys through its profound pages.

Laying down the essentials of Biblical Christianity in a most thoughtful, concise and clear fashion, I would plead that individuals would pick it up afresh and read it thoughtfully and carefully. More. I would l really encourage church leaders to begin study groups around it. I cannot think of something more useful for new Christians in building a Biblical mindset and worldview.

I commend it to you with the utmost earnestness.