J. I. Packer (1926-2020) was educated at Oxford and ordained a priest at St. John's Harborne. In 1970 he became principal at Tyndale Hall, and joined the faculty at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada in 1979. He served as Honourary Assistant at St. John's Anglican Church in Vancouver for thirty--seven years.

Packer wrote over forty books, including Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, Knowing God, and A Quest for Godliness. He co--authored over a dozen other books, was an editor at Christianity Today for more than thirty years, and served as general editor of The English Standard Version Bible. Time magazine named him one of the "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America" in 2005.