Packer on Whitefield

When I wrote my two-volume definitive biography on the great British evangelist George Whitefield, it was only fitting that J. I. Packer graciously agreed to write the foreword, since he and Whitefield were both Gloucester men. He wanted to read a portion of the book, so I sent him 600 typed manuscript pages, and I called him up to see if he wanted me to send him more. And he replied, no, no, that's quite enough.

I think I wore him out. But when I received his foreword, I saw why they call him Packer, because he wore me out, because he packed a lot of observations on Whitefield in such a short essay. And that's what I want to read you today, friends.

My Whitefield biography has three editions, the two-volume British edition, published in England in 2008 by Tentmaker Publications, and the two-volume American edition, published in 2012 by Revival Literature, and the third edition, which is the combined two volumes and one paperback, published in 2023 by Old Paths Publications. Very few have written as wisely on Whitefield as J. I. Packer, so I present now his keen thoughts on the greatest preacher who ever spoke the English language. It's important for us to study, friends, men like Whitefield, whom God has used in revivals.

Here now is J. I. Packer's foreword to my book, George Whitefield, a definitive biography in two volumes. Here are his words. George Whitefield, of Gloucester, England, intercontinental gospel preacher, with a voice like organ music and a lifelong West Country accent, was a phenomenon.

He was an unusual human being whom God equipped and used in a quite unique way. He was a very godly man. From the time when, as a student in Oxford, he met the Wesleys, his passion was to grasp and be grasped by the God they served, the God of the Bible, the God and Father of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Following his conversion, he left Oxford and ministered in and around his hometown. He came to the bishop's notice and received ordination at 21, two years younger than the statutory minimum age. Overnight, he became a popular preacher, always highlighting the new birth.

Throughout his ministry, he lived by rule, maintaining a steady devotional life each day, reading and re-reading the marvelous Puritan exposition of the Bible by Matthew Henry, usually on his knees and interceding at length for the advance of God's kingdom. His penitent humility before God was lifelong and deep, and was the taproot of the compassionate, confident, and confidential boldness that never ceased to amaze his hearers. He was a disciplined man, abstinence in food and drink, taking no more sleep than he needed, and he could manage on less sleep than most, and always meticulous in his personal affairs.

Single-minded and eager, well-focused and joyful, genial and practical, he lived every day full stretch for his Lord. Premature aging and the onset of asthma or angina, or perhaps both, did not slow him down. The awed response that he commanded whenever he preached was as much admiration for his transparent spiritual zeal as for the stupendous force of his preaching as such.

He was a very gifted man. To his natural energetic alertness and charm were added in sanctified mode all the powers that mark great actors. What were these? First, the power to command and hold attention.

Movement or action, as the classical theorists of rhetoric called it, is central here, and Whitefield was never still in the pulpit. Second, a big, in Whitefield's case, a huge voice, capable of expressing the whole range of human emotions and attitudes. Whitefield could thunder, lament, caress, and encourage with overwhelming, heart-searching, heart-breaking power.

Third, a total identification with what he was projecting, not, in Whitefield's case, a character on stage, but the holiness and mercy of God and the transformation of life that Christ brings when, through faith and repentance, we learn to live in, through, to, and for Him. Fourth, the ability to make every utterance an easy flow of vivid and arresting speech. All great actors and all great preachers can do this.

Fifth, power to so impact each individual in the crowd that he or she feels personally addressed, arrested, and drawn into what is going on, in Whitefield's case, persuasion from God through his messenger. Thus, gifted as a dramatic communicator, Whitefield had an evangelistic and nurturing ministry in the pulpit of unprecedented power and fruitfulness. Dr. Johnston tells Whitefield's story in a way that celebrates him as a servant of God and thus can be fairly described as hagiographical, but there is nothing wrong with that, even though it is a kind of writing at which today's secular historians tend to turn up their noses.

The author does not hide Whitefield's failings and imprudences, but concentrates on celebrating the way God used his servant, which makes his book hagiography of the most distinguished kind. He praises God for Whitefield and wants his readers to do the same. We should agree with him that Whitefield is not a man to be forgotten and be grateful for his labors to keep the great evangelist's memory green.

If you care about the glory of God in the salvation of souls, you will find this book a tonic, J. I. Packer. Well, friends, those are his comments, and if you want to dig deeper into the life and ministry of George Whitefield and the Great Awakening, this book can be got on Amazon.com under the title search of George Whitefield, A Definitive Biography, Volumes 1 and 2, combined.