The essay is “Packer at Ninety,” and you’ll find it at First Things.
It has been my privilege to know and work closely with Jim Packer for the past thirty-five years, only a fraction of his long and still amazingly productive career. I have seen him buffeted by adversity, and criticized unfairly, but I have never seen him sag. His smile is irrepressible and his laughter can bring light to the most somber of meetings. His love for all things human and humane shines through. His mastery of ideas and the most fitting words in which to express them is peerless. Ever impatient with sham of all kinds, his saintly character and spirituality run deep. I love to hear him pray. Again and again, he has reminded us that we live our lives coram deo and in the light of eternity. He has taught us that theology is for doxology and devotion, that theology is always at its best “when it is consciously done under the eye of the God of whom it speaks, and when it is singing to his glory.”
