In one section of the book Packer suggests that the Bible need to be read from a place of submission to it. The reader needs to submit themselves to the Word of God and allow the Bible to speak for itself. This is something that I agree with, philosophically. I think the problem is not with the concept of submission, but with what you are fundamentally "submitting" to. In other words, what kind or understanding of Scripture are you submitting to? Submission to a wrong understanding of Scripture is no better than not submitting to Scripture - both are wrong and misguided. I think this is where the fundamental evangelical problem is relative to Scripture. Good evangelicals submit themselves to Scripture, but they have a wrong view of Scripture. They submit to something that is fundamentally misunderstood.
This ties into my reading of Barth in "The Strange New World of the Bible." My understanding of the book is in a previous blog post so I won't go into it here. Suffice it to say that the Barth does not see the Bible as responding to human questions relative to moral behavior. The Bible is God revealing Himself to us. Employing the Bible as a moral guidebook is at the least misguided. Therefore we are faced with the fact that "submission" to Scripture is not submitting oneself to mere moral teaching or examples (yes, we can still glean more behavior from Scripture, see previous blog post). Instead, we are submitting ourselves to God and His communication of Himself through Scripture. Scripture doesn't address our questions (and therefore provide answers); Scripture teaches us who God is. We submit to that.