J. I. Packer - Finishing Our Course with Joy: Guidance from God for Engaging with Our Aging

Thank you for downloading this Crossway book.

Sign-up for the Crossway Newsletter for updates on special offers, new resources, and exciting global ministry initiatives:

Crossway Newsletter

Or, if you prefer, we would love to connect with you online:

Facebook
Twitter
Google +

I wish I had thought more about growing older when I was younger. If I had, perhaps I wouldnt need wisdom from J. I. Packer. But I didnt, and therefore I do! And what wonderful wisdom it is, the sort that challenges us, redirects our energy, and equips us with biblical truth to face our latter years. Im at that stage in life where engaging with my aging has become increasingly more urgent. And I cant think of anyone who can provide more helpful and encouraging insight than J. I. Packer. Dont wait until youre sixty or seventy to read this book. Start now and finish well.

Sam Storms, Senior Pastor, Bridgeway Church, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

J. I. Packer is his usual wise self as he gives his counsel herein for older people to pursue their aging with zeal! He urges us to serve God and his church however we can, while we can. This is devout and inspiring motivation.

Marva J. Dawn, theologian; speaker; author, Being Well When Were Ill ; In the Beginning, GOD ; and Talking the Walk

Experts say that the proportion of the elderly population in the United States will grow by 80 percent in the decades to come. It is more important than ever to have a biblical mind about how we spend our latter years for Gods glory. We want to finish well (2 Tim. 4:7), and good pastors care to prepare their people to do precisely this. Finishing Our Course with Joy comes as wise, true, timely, and edifying biblical reflection and pastoral counsel on this significant subject. Dr. Packers book speaks to senior adults, those who love and care for them, those who will become them, and those who pastor them. As one who has had the privilege of knowing J. I. Packer since my teen years, reading these wordswritten from his own personal experience, communion with God, and knowledge of the Wordis poignant for me, to say the least. But that only makes the truth go in deeper. And that is good.

J. Ligon Duncan III, Chancellor and John E. Richards Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson, Mississippi

Finishing
Our Course
with Joy

Other Crossway Books by J. I. Packer

A Grief Sanctified: Through Sorrow to Eternal Hope

Growing in Christ

Praying the Lords Prayer

Keeping the Ten Commandments

In My Place Condemned He Stood: Celebrating the Glory of the Atonement (with Mark Dever)

Affirming the Apostles Creed

A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life

Faithfulness and Holiness: The Witness of J. C. Ryle

Taking God Seriously: Vital Things We Need to Know

Weakness Is the Way: Life with Christ Our Strength

Finishing Our Course with Joy: Guidance from God for Engaging with Our Aging

Copyright 2014 by J. I. Packer

Published by Crossway
1300 Crescent Street
Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Tyler Deeb, Pedale Design

First printing 2014
Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway. 2011 Text Edition. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-4106-3
PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-4107-0
Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-4108-7
ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-4109-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Packer, J. I. (James Innell)

Finishing our course with joy : guidance from God for engaging with our aging / J. I. Packer.

1 online resource

Description based on print version and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-4335-4107-0 (pdf) ISBN 978-1-4335-4108-7 (mobi) ISBN 978-1-4335-4109-4 (epub) ISBN 978-1-4335-4106-3 (tp)

1. Older peopleReligious life. 2. AgingReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.

BV4580

248.8'5dc23

2013028838

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

To Jim Houston
in gratitude

Contents

Four days in June 2012 were set apart for celebrating the diamond jubilee of Europes veteran monarch, Her Britannic Majesty Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth. I, who am British by birth and Canadian by choice, resonated with the celebration and on day four, began to pen this book.

It addresses those who, like myself, are well into aging. Nowadays, we elderlies (as I have heard us called) are classified as younger olds (6575), medium olds (7585), and oldest olds (85 plus). Queen Elizabeth, like her husband, is an oldest old; she is 87, he is 92.

The Queen is a very remarkable person. Tirelessly, it seems, she goes on doing what she has been doing for six decades and more: waving in shy friendliness to the crowds past whom she is transported, and greeting with a smile one and another, children particularly, whom she meets in her walkabouts. It is more than sixty years since she publicly committed herself before God to serve Commonwealth citizens all her life. She has done it devotedly up to now, and will undoubtedly continue doing it as long as she physically can. So we may expect to see more of the porkpie hats and hear more of the clear, easy voice as her reign continues. She is a Christian lady resolved to live out her vow till she drops. She merits unbounded admiration from us all.

As myself a Christian, a Commonwealth citizen, and an oldest old with my own lifetime commitment to God, I aim to follow her example of unflagging faithfulness, and I write these pages in hope of persuading others to do the same.

As I write, I am aware that some of my peers will not be fully with me at this point; not because their Christian commitment is less strong than mine, but because they are now limited in what they can think and do by reason of their physical health breaking down or, more sadly, some form of dementia, that is, impaired working of the mind due to malfunction of the brain. For us in the oldest-old class, these things are usually irreversible.

It is true that modern medicine and surgery keep our bodies going longer, and some think it will be possible to extend ordinary peoples bodily lives to something like 120 years. Yet who would choose that prospect if they thought that for up to half a century, certainly more than a third of their extended life, they would be victims of dementia? This is a possibility that can hardly be ruled out, for already one in four of us oldest old experience dementia in some form, and clearly the odds will shorten the longer our lives last.

Be that as it may, these pages address those who, by Gods grace, still have their faculties more or less intact; who recognize that, as is often and truly said, aging is not for wimps; and who want to learn, in a straightforward way, how we may continue living to Gods glory as we get older.

D E C L I N E

How should we view the onset of old age? The common assumption is that it is mainly a process of loss, whereby strength is drained from both mind and body and the capacity to look forward and move forward in lifes various departments is reduced to nothing. More than four centuries ago, Shakespeare put this assessment into the mouth of the melancholy Jaques in As You Like It . Surveying the seven ages of man on the world stage, Jaques comes to this: