On July 17th, 2020, J. I. Packer, the beloved Anglican author and theologian, went home to be with the Lord.

And yet his life and ministry continue to impact the lives of countless Christians around the world,

primarily through as many books and essays. Shortly after his passing, I sat down with Sam Storms, author of Packer

on the Christian Life, to discuss his life and legacy. Today, we're excited to re-share that

interview in honor of the release of a beautiful commemorative edition of the book that Packer

is most well known for, Knowing God, now available from Crossway. Let's get started.

Sam, thank you so much for joining us on the Crossway podcast today.

It's good to be with you today. I'm looking forward to this.

So, J.I. Packer looms large as one of the most influential evangelical theologians of the 20th century. Did you ever meet him personally?

Yes, I did on several occasions. I think I heard him speak and lecture on a number of different occasions, but didn't meet him

personally. But the first time that we met personally was at a conference in Dallas. I can't

even remember the year. It had to have been probably back in the early 2000s. And he and I shared

a platform in a panel discussion on a particular theological issue.

And then I had the opportunity to have a couple of meals with him. And then finally, we reconnected

in a more personal way when I was teaching at Wheaton College. Kind of a humorous story about

that. I had a student that I was mentoring who was at Wheaton,

who absolutely, if I can say it in a reverential sort of way, worship the ground the

Packer walked on. He held him in such high, high regard. And I was assigned a task of picking

Jim up at the, by the way, he insists that people call him Jim.

I'm not being overly personal there or flipping, but to pick him up at his hotel and take him to dinner and he was lecturing at the Wheaton theology conference.

Actually, I take that back.

It was a, it was a conference on ECT, the Evangelicals and Catholics

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