Preface

The nucleus of the following discourse was an address given at the Pre-Mission Conference of the London Inter-Faculty Christian Union on October 24, 1959. It has been expanded in the hope of giving it a wider usefulness. Its origin, and the practical nature of its subject matter, accounts for its homiletical style.

Lest its purpose be misconceived, may I say at the outset what it is not.

It is not a blueprint for evangelistic action today, though it sets out relevant principles for determining any evangelistic strategy.

It is not a contribution to the current controversy about modern evangelistic methods, though it lays down relevant principles for settling that controversy.

It is not a critique of the evangelistic principles of any particular person or persons, though it provides relevant principles for evaluating all evangelistic activities.

What is it, then? It is a piece of biblical and theological reasoning, designed to clarify the relationship between three realities: God’s sovereignty, man’s responsibility and the Christian’s evangelistic duty. The last of these is its proper subject; divine sovereignty and human responsibility are discussed only so far as they bear on evangelism. The aim of the discourse is to dispel the suspicion (current, it seems, in some quarters) that faith in the absolute sovereignty of God hinders a full recognition and acceptance of evangelistic responsibility, and to show that, on the contrary, only this faith can give Christians the strength that they need to fulfill their evangelistic task.

It must not be thought that on all the points with which I deal I am trying to lay down some sort of “I.V.F. orthodoxy.” The limits of “I.V.F. orthodoxy” are set out in the Fellowship’s doctrinal basis. Beyond those limits, members of the Fellowship are free, in John Wesley’s phrase, to “think and let think,” and no opinion on any subject can be regarded as the only one permissible. On the subject now to be dealt with, it may well be that some members of the Fellowship will think differently from the present writer. Equally, however, an author has a right to his own opinion, and he cannot be expected to conceal his views when he believes them to be biblical, relevant and (in the strict sense) edifying.

J. I. Packer

 J. I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (Westmont, IL: IVP Books, 2012), 11–12.