Theologian J.I. Packer reflects on sharing his faith

It's been a good year for the Rev. J.I. Packer, one of the world's best-known theologians. In March, the Anglican priest and Regent College professor won Bible of the Year and Book of the Year honors for editing the English Standard Version Study Bible. He also released two of his own books -- "Praying: Finding Our Way Through Duty to Delight" and a year-long devotional using his seminal work, "Knowing God."

Packer, listed as one of Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America" in 2005, sat down with the Bee of Modesto, Calif., at the Christian Book Expo in Dallas this year to talk on a wide range of subjects, from growing up in England to C.S. Lewis's impact on his life to becoming embroiled in the Anglican/Episcopal dispute. Here's what he had to say:

Q: When you were a young lad in England, what did you think you would be when you grew up?

A: A teacher. Not because I knew anything about the various professional possibilities, but because my mother had been a teacher and a very good one. I know now that if I'd been properly assessed in terms of potential -- none of that was done in the 1930s and the early 1940s -- I'm sure I should have been a lawyer. . . . But at age 18, I became a believer, and the Lord said something different that I had never thought about before.

Q: What did you hear?

A: I was doing the Oxford general degree, just a four-year affair with an emphasis on the classics, Latin and Greek, language, culture, literature, so on. And I came to realize that I wouldn't get job satisfaction from any life activity except shepherding the Lord's people and holding out the Gospel in the hope of seeing more people coming to faith and enlarging the flock. That is how it came to me: "Shepherd, shepherd, look after the flock."

Q: Was C.S. Lewis at Oxford at the time, and did he influence your faith?

A: Yes. The books of C.S. Lewis had a very profound, indirect effect on me. Lewis, of course, was a Catholic-Anglican rather than an evangelical, but he erected around me all the scaffolding of orthodox Christianity, in terms of which I was opened to the authentic Gospel. His writings still help me. He was certainly the 20th century's number one apologist. The older I get, the more I appreciate his real genius in Christian insight and communication.

Q: You're such a prolific writer yourself, but you're probably best known for one book, "Knowing God," first published in 1973. Why do you think that particular book has been such a big seller?

A: It rang a bell because it covered ground and did a job that many people felt needed to be done but that nobody was attempting at that stage. What was happening was that in evangelical circles, all the emphasis was being laid on personal experience and devotion in the sense in which husbands and wives are devoted to each other. There was not a great deal of intellectual effort going along with it. What I did in "Knowing God" is to write a series of practical articles intended to lead the reader to faith.

Q: On a radio program, you explained why different Bible translations have different endings to the Gospel of Mark. How does this jibe with the inerrancy of God's word?

A: The inerrancy of Scripture applies to the material as prepared for publication. I'm saying that quite deliberately because I want to allow the editor in. In some Old Testament books, it's very evident that an editor has been at work. That's quite all right. It's part of the process.