Calvin at 500 -- FPC sermon excerpt
“It’s not about you.”
That’s the first line of Rick Warren’s mega-best-selling book The Purpose Driven Life. “If you want to know why you were placed on this planet,” he goes on to say, “you must begin with God.”
This is a very God-centered agenda, one that is based on the belief that you cannot discover your life’s purpose by starting with a focus on yourself. Instead, you have turn to your Creator, and discover the reason God has put you in this world.
It’s not about you. It’s all about God.
So where would Rick Warren get such an idea? It’s hard to say, exactly. But if you pick up this particular thread of Christian thinking and tug on it, you’re going to find yourself face-to-face with a 500-year-old man named John Calvin.
Famous for his pointed beard, plain dress, and stern expression, Calvin seems to be the antithesis of a laid-back, California-cool pastor like Rick Warren. But both men believe that knowledge of self requires knowledge of God. And both believe that God was acting in love when he created the world and everything in it. “There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world,” said John Calvin, “that is not intended to make us rejoice.”
Maybe Calvin wasn’t such a cranky Calvinist, after all.
Born on July 10, 1509, he turns 500 this year, and his birthday is the reason that people around the world are pausing to pay him some respect. Born in France, he was a brilliant young man who intended to be a Catholic priest, but ended up entering the field of law. After encountering the writings of Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther, he had a conversion experience — he said, “God subdued and brought my heart to docility.”
Breaking away from Catholicism, he left France and settled in Switzerland as an exile. In the year 1536, Calvin published one of the greatest theological works ever written, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. This major book of Christian theology begins with God the Creator and ends with reflections on civil government, and it stands as one of the most important expressions of Reformation thought.
Not bad work for a 27-year-old.
Calvin’s writings impressed the people of Geneva, Switzerland, so he was invited to move to that city and help with the reform movement there. Calvin’s workload in Geneva was staggering: He pastored a church and preached daily in it, wrote commentaries on almost every book in the Bible, authored dozens of Christian pamphlets, trained and sent out missionaries, and influenced the schools and the civil government.
I’m not surprised that he suffered from chronic migraine headaches!
The city of Geneva became a magnet for Protestant exiles from all over Europe. One of them, John Knox of Scotland, described Calvin’s city as “the most perfect school of Christ since the days of the apostles.”
So what made Calvin and Geneva so magnetic?
For starters, Calvin emphasized the sovereignty of God, and wrote that “God is Lord over all!” (Institutes, 1.14.3). Sovereignty means supreme authority, rule, power, and independence, and for Calvin, God is sovereign. Calvin stressed that no human being — whether king or bishop — could demand our ultimate loyalty, and his approach attracted people who were suffering under the authority of oppressive churches and governments.
Calvin’s belief in the sovereignty of God has shaped Christian thought through the centuries, and it had a dramatic impact before the Second World War. At that time, in Germany, a group of faithful Germans took a stand against Hitler in a statement of faith called The Theological Declaration of Barmen. They rejected the attempts of the Third Reich to “become the single and totalitarian order of human life.”
These faithful Germans gave ultimate loyalty to the Lord alone. And some were imprisoned and even killed for their beliefs.
Calvin also stressed the importance of grace, and claimed that salvation is possible only through the grace of God. He believed that nothing earthly can save us, and he criticized the Catholic Church for becoming a religion of salvation-by-works. Since God is Lord over all, human beings, human works, and human institutions cannot manipulate or control God in any way. We cannot be saved by anything but the grace of God, which is a completely free gift to those who trust in Jesus Christ.
That’s the first line of Rick Warren’s mega-best-selling book The Purpose Driven Life. “If you want to know why you were placed on this planet,” he goes on to say, “you must begin with God.”
This is a very God-centered agenda, one that is based on the belief that you cannot discover your life’s purpose by starting with a focus on yourself. Instead, you have turn to your Creator, and discover the reason God has put you in this world.
It’s not about you. It’s all about God.
So where would Rick Warren get such an idea? It’s hard to say, exactly. But if you pick up this particular thread of Christian thinking and tug on it, you’re going to find yourself face-to-face with a 500-year-old man named John Calvin.
Famous for his pointed beard, plain dress, and stern expression, Calvin seems to be the antithesis of a laid-back, California-cool pastor like Rick Warren. But both men believe that knowledge of self requires knowledge of God. And both believe that God was acting in love when he created the world and everything in it. “There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world,” said John Calvin, “that is not intended to make us rejoice.”
Maybe Calvin wasn’t such a cranky Calvinist, after all.
Born on July 10, 1509, he turns 500 this year, and his birthday is the reason that people around the world are pausing to pay him some respect. Born in France, he was a brilliant young man who intended to be a Catholic priest, but ended up entering the field of law. After encountering the writings of Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther, he had a conversion experience — he said, “God subdued and brought my heart to docility.”
Breaking away from Catholicism, he left France and settled in Switzerland as an exile. In the year 1536, Calvin published one of the greatest theological works ever written, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. This major book of Christian theology begins with God the Creator and ends with reflections on civil government, and it stands as one of the most important expressions of Reformation thought.
Not bad work for a 27-year-old.
Calvin’s writings impressed the people of Geneva, Switzerland, so he was invited to move to that city and help with the reform movement there. Calvin’s workload in Geneva was staggering: He pastored a church and preached daily in it, wrote commentaries on almost every book in the Bible, authored dozens of Christian pamphlets, trained and sent out missionaries, and influenced the schools and the civil government.
I’m not surprised that he suffered from chronic migraine headaches!
The city of Geneva became a magnet for Protestant exiles from all over Europe. One of them, John Knox of Scotland, described Calvin’s city as “the most perfect school of Christ since the days of the apostles.”
So what made Calvin and Geneva so magnetic?
For starters, Calvin emphasized the sovereignty of God, and wrote that “God is Lord over all!” (Institutes, 1.14.3). Sovereignty means supreme authority, rule, power, and independence, and for Calvin, God is sovereign. Calvin stressed that no human being — whether king or bishop — could demand our ultimate loyalty, and his approach attracted people who were suffering under the authority of oppressive churches and governments.
Calvin’s belief in the sovereignty of God has shaped Christian thought through the centuries, and it had a dramatic impact before the Second World War. At that time, in Germany, a group of faithful Germans took a stand against Hitler in a statement of faith called The Theological Declaration of Barmen. They rejected the attempts of the Third Reich to “become the single and totalitarian order of human life.”
These faithful Germans gave ultimate loyalty to the Lord alone. And some were imprisoned and even killed for their beliefs.
Calvin also stressed the importance of grace, and claimed that salvation is possible only through the grace of God. He believed that nothing earthly can save us, and he criticized the Catholic Church for becoming a religion of salvation-by-works. Since God is Lord over all, human beings, human works, and human institutions cannot manipulate or control God in any way. We cannot be saved by anything but the grace of God, which is a completely free gift to those who trust in Jesus Christ.
posted by Henry Brinton | 1:52 PM
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