Their love story is not one of fairy tales. It is one of faithfulness from the beginning through to its tragic ending. Richard and Margaret Baxter had been married only nineteen years before she died at age forty-five. A prominent pastor and prolific author, Baxter sought consolation and relief the only true way he knew- in Scripture with his discipline of writing. Within days he produced a lover's tribute to his mate and a pastor's celebration of God's grace. It is spiritual storytelling at its best, made all the more poignant by the author's unveiling of his grief. J. I. Packer has added his own astute reflections along with his edited version of this exquisite memoir that considers six of life's realities-love, faith, death, grief, hope, and patience. He guides you in comparing and contrasting the world's and the Bible's ideals on coping with these tides of life. The powerful combination of Packer's insights and Baxter's grief gives you a beacon if you are searching for God, a pathfinder for your relationships, and a lifeline if you are grieving.
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What do J. I. Packer, Billy Graham and Richard John Neuhaus have in common? Each was recently named by TIME magazine as among the 25 most influential evangelicals in America. Dr. Packer, the Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology at Regent College, was hailed by TIME as “a doctrinal Solomon” among Protestants. “Mediating debates on everything from a particular Bible translation to the acceptability of free-flowing Pentecostal spirituality, Packer helps unify a community [evange licalism] that could easily fall victim to its internal tensions.” Knowing God, Dr. Packer’s seminal 1973 work, was lauded as a book which articulated shared beliefs for members of diverse denominations; the TIME profile quotes Michael Cromartie of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington as saying, “conservative Methodists and Presbyterians and Baptists could all look to [Knowing God] and say, ‘This sums it all up for us.’” In a similar tribute to Dr. Packer almost ten years ago, American theologian Mark Noll wrote in Christianity Today that, “Packer’s ability to address immensely important subjects in crisp, succinct sentences is one of the reasons why, both as an author and speaker, he has played such an important role among American evangelicals for four decades.” For over 25 years Regent College students have been privileged to study under Dr. Packer’s clear and lucid teaching, and our faculty, staff and students celebrate the international recognition he rightly receives as a leading Christian thinker and teacher. (https://www.regent-college.edu/facult...)
