Next year the church will celebrate the 500th birthday of John Calvin. Be prepared to see a glut of books on the man for the next year. This newest volume, out soon from P&R, looks great.

A Theological Guide to Calvin’s Institutes: Essays and Analysis (Hardcover)

Read inside (PDFs): Sample Pages

Publisher: P&R Publishing Company
Author: Hall, David W., Lillback, Peter
ISBN-13: 9781596380912
Binding: Hardcover
List Price: $25.99 $35.99
Westminster Bookstore: $16.89 $23.39

Expected arrival: June 2008

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CONTENTS

Foreword ix
J.I. Packer

1. The Historical Context of the Institutes as a Work in Theology 1
William S. Barker

2. A Primal and Simple Knowledge (1.1–5) 16
K. Scott Oliphint

3. Calvin’s Doctrine of Holy Scripture (1.6–10) 44
Robert L. Reymond

4. The True and Triune God: Calvin’s Doctrine of the Holy Trinity (1.11–13) 65
Douglas F. Kelly

5. Election and Predestination: The Sovereign Expressions of God (3.21–24) 90
R. Scott Clark

6. Creation and Providence (1.14, 16–18 ) 123
Joseph A. Pipa Jr.

7. A Shattered Vase: The Tragedy of Sin in Calvin’s Thought (1.15; 2.1–4) 151
Michael S. Horton

8. Calvin’s Interpretation of the History of Salvation: The Continuity and Discontinuity of the Covenant (2.10–11) 168
Peter A. Lillback

9. The Mediator of the Covenant (2.12–15) 205
Derek W. H. Thomas

10. Calvin on Christ’s Saving Work (2.16–17) 226
Robert A. Peterson

11. Justification and Union with Christ (3.11–18 ) 248
Richard B. Gaffin Jr.

12. Appropriating Salvation: The Spirit, Faith and Assurance, and Repentance (3.1–3, 6–10) 270
Joel R. Beeke

13. The Law and the Spirit of Christ (2.6–9) 301
David Clyde Jones

14. Ethics: The Christian Life and Good Works according to Calvin (3.6–10, 17–19) 320
William Edgar

15. Prayer: “The Chief Exercise of Faith” (3.20) 347
David B. Calhoun

16. Calvin, Worship, and the Sacraments (4.13–19) 368
W. Robert Godfrey

17. John Calvin’s View of Church Government (4.3–9) 390
Joseph H. Hall

18. Calvin on Human Government and the State (4.20) 411
David W. Hall

19. Calvin’s Doctrine of the Last Things: The Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting (3.25 et al.) 441
Cornelis P. Venema

20. Essential Calvin Bibliography 468
Richard C. Gamble and Zachary John Kail

Index of Scripture 481

Index of Subjects and Names 489

In the past I’ve been exhorted in my prayer life by the writings of A.W. Tozer. But in reading A Passion For God: The Spiritual Journey of A. W. Tozer by Lyle Dorsett (Chicago, IL; Moody, 2008 ) I’ve now been exhorted by Tozer’s practice of prayer.

Late in the book, Dorsett recounts a fairly famous account of Tozer’s writing of his classic The Pursuit of God. Here is that account—written by Tozer himself (a man not given to self-promotion).

He was invited to speak at McAllen, Texas, and he thought on the long ride down there that he would write on this book. He boarded the train—the old Pullman train—at LaSalle Street Station in Chicago—the days when you would pull the curtain on the roomette and he would be all alone. Well he asked for a little writing table which the porter brought him and he started to write. Along about nine o’clock the porter knocked on the side of the door and said, “Friend, this is the last call for dinner—would you want something to eat?” And he said, “Bring me some toast and some tea” which he did. [Tozer] kept on writing, all night long, this thing coming as fast to his heart as he could write, and when they pulled into the station, about 7:30 the next morning, at McAllen, Texas, that book was finished and all he had in front of him was just the Bible.

Dorsett follows with these exhortive descriptions.

The Pursuit of God is one of the most striking manifestations of the truth that if a man will concern himself with the depth of his ministry, the Holy Spirit will take care of the breadth. Zwemer was correct about the book’s origin. This powerful little book that has had such a profound impact on the souls of hungry Christians who crave a deeper knowledge of God was impregnated and nurtured in Tozers soul. And the gestation happened in long hours of adoration and awe of God. Although the author never boasted about his devotional habits, those few who knew him well knew that the angular man with little formal schooling learned much about his Lord and his God in the secret place.

Tozer spent incalculable hours in prayer. Most of his prolonged prayer time—with his Bible and hymnals as his only companions—took place in his church office on the back side of the second floor. He would carefully hang up his suit trousers and don his sweater and raggedy old “prayer pants” and sit for a while on his ancient office couch. After a time his spirit would drift into another realm. In time, he would abandon the couch, get on his knees, and eventually lie facedown on the floor, singing praises to the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

No one presumed to interrupt these times of intimacy between A. W. Tozer and the Lover of his soul. But occasionally one of the men closest to him would climb the steps to his office and chance to see him on the couch or floor—totally oblivious to the world. Francis Chase, Harry Verploegh, and Tozer’s assistant pastor, Ray McAfee, all saw him at one time or another in one of these postures. And more than one of them mentioned that Tozer was weeping or moaning facedown in the old carpet.

-Lyle Dorsett, A Passion For God: The Spiritual Journey of A. W. Tozer (Chicago, IL; Moody, 2008 ), pp. 121-122.

I’m nearing the end of A Passion For God: The Spiritual Journey of A. W. Tozer by Lyle Dorsett (Chicago, IL; Moody, 2008). It’s been a well-researched portrait look at a fascinatingly godly (and isolated) man who, through his popular wittings, has shaped modern Christian spirituality.

Tozer was raised in a blue-collar, non-Christian home, a farmer who followed his family when they moved to the big city for better employment. From the farm Tozer transitioned into a job hand-cutting rubber in a Goodyear tire plant. His gifting for the ministry however became evident to the Christians around him and Tozer was ordained by the Christian and Missionary Alliance on August 18, 1920 at the age of 23. After the ordination service, Tozer prematurely left the fellowship celebration to spend time alone with God in prayer, a priority he would cherish and model throughout his life. Years later the private prayer from his ordination day was written and published, “For Pastors Only.” Here is the text as it later appeared in the Alliance Weekly on May 6, 1950.

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For Pastors Only – Prayer of a Minor Prophet

By A. W Tozer

This is the prayer of a man called to be a witness to the nations. This is what he said to his Lord on the day of his ordination. After the elders and ministers had prayed and laid their hands on him he withdrew to meet his Saviour in the secret place and in the silence, farther in than his well-meaning brethren could take him. And he said:

O Lord, I have heard Thy voice and was afraid. Thou hast called me to an awesome task in a grave and perilous hour. Thou are about to shake all nations and the earth and also heaven, that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. O Lord, our Lord, Thou has stopped to honor me to be Thy servant. No man takes this honor upon himself save he that is called of God as was Aaron. Thou has ordained me Thy messenger to them that are stubborn of heart and hard of hearing. They have rejected Thee, the Master, and it is not to be expected that they will receive me, the servant.

My God, I shall not waste time deploring my weakness nor my unfittedness for the work. The responsibility is not mine but Thine. Thou hast said, “I knew thee—I ordained thee—I sanctified thee,” and Thou has also said, “Thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.” Who am I to argue with Thee or to call into question Thy sovereign choice? The decision is not mine but Thine. So be it, Lord. Thy will, not mine, be done.

Well do I know, Thou God of the prophets and the apostles, that as long as I honor Thee Thou wilt honor me. Help me therefore to take this solemn vow to honor Thee in all my future life and labors, whether by gain or by loss, by life or by death, and then to keep that vow unbroken while I live.

It is time, O God, for Thee to work, for the enemy has entered into Thy pastures and the sheep are torn and scattered. And false shepherds abound who deny the danger and laugh at the perils which surround Thy flock. The sheep are deceived by these hirelings and follow them with touching loyalty while the wolf closes in to kill and destroy. I beseech Thee, give me sharp eyes to detect the presence of the enemy; give me understanding to distinguish the false friend from the true. Give me vision to see and courage to report what I see faithfully. Make my voice so like Thine own that even the sick sheep will recognize it and follow Thee.

Lord Jesus, I come to Thee for spiritual preparation. Lay Thy hand upon me. Anoint me with the oil of the New Testament prophet. Forbid that I should become a religious scribe and thus lose my prophetic calling. Save me from the curse that lies dark across the face of the modern clergy, the curse of compromise, of imitation, of professionalism. Save me from the error of judging a church by its size, its popularity or the amount of its yearly offering. Help me to remember that I am a prophet; not a promoter, not a religious manager—but a prophet. Let me never become a slave to crowds. Heal my soul of carnal ambitions and deliver me from the itch for publicity. Save me from the bondage to things. Let me not waste my days puttering around the house. Lay Thy terror upon me, O God, and drive me to the place of prayer where I may wrestle with principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world. Deliver me from overeating and late sleeping. Teach me self-discipline that I may be a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

I accept hard work and small rewards in this life. I ask for no easy place. I shall try to be blind to the little ways that I could make my life easier. If others seek the smoother path I shall try to take the hard way without judging them too harshly. I shall expect opposition and try to take it quietly when it comes. Or if, as sometimes it falleth out to Thy servants, I shall have grateful gifts pressed upon me by Thy kindly people, stand by me then and save me from the blight that often follows. Teach me to use whatever I receive in such manner that it will not injure my soul nor diminish my spiritual power. And if in Thy permissive providence honor should come to me from Thy church, let me not forget in that hour that I am unworthy of the least of Thy mercies, and that if men knew me as intimately as I know myself they would withhold their honors or bestow them upon others more worthy to receive them.

And now, O Lord of heaven and earth, I consecrate my remaining days to Thee; let them be many or few, as Thou wilt. Let me stand before the great or minister to the poor and lowly; that choice is not mine, and I would not influence it if I could. I am Thy servant to do Thy will, and that will is sweeter to me than position or riches or fame and I choose it above all things on earth or in heaven. Though I am chosen of Thee and honored by a high and holy calling, let me never forget that I am but a man of dust and ashes, a man with all the natural faults and passions that plague the race of men. I pray Thee therefore, my Lord and Redeemer, save me from myself and from all the injuries I may do myself while trying to be a blessing to others. Fill me with thy power by the Holy Spirit, and I will go in Thy strength and tell of Thy righteousness, even Thine only. I will spread abroad the message of redeeming love while my normal powers endure.

Then, dear Lord, when I am old and weary and too tired to go on, have a place ready for me above, and make me to be numbered with Thy saints in glory everlasting. Amen.

-As quote in A Passion For God: The Spiritual Journey of A. W. Tozer by Lyle Dorsett (Chicago, IL; Moody, 2008), pp. 65-68.

An excellent selection from Herman Bavinck’s 4-vol magnum opus on the role of faith, reason, and theology.

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Reason Serving Faith

… we must first of all and fundamentally reject the notion that regards faith and reason as two independent powers engaging in a life-and-death struggle with each other. In that way one creates a dualism that does not belong in the Christian domain. In that case faith is always above (supra) or even opposed (contra) to reason. Threatening on the one hand is rationalism and on the other supernaturalism. Faith, the faith by which we believe, is not an organ or faculty next to or above reason but a disposition or habit of reason itself.

Reason, or if people prefer, thinking, is certainly not a source of theology, not a principle by which or through which or from which or on account of which we believe. Reason is a source, not the source of any science; at most it is only for the formal sciences such as logic or mathematics. Still reason is the recipient subject of faith, capable of faith; faith is an act of the human consciousness; an animal is not capable of believing.

Furthermore, faith is not an involuntary but a free act. Christians do not believe on command, out of fear, or in response to violence. Believing has become the natural habit of their mind, not in the sense that there is often not considerable resistance in their soul to that believing, but still in such a way that, though often doing what they do not want to do, they still take delight in God’s law in their inmost self [cf. Rom. 7:22]. Believing is the natural breath of the children of God. Their submission to the Word of God is not slavery but freedom. In that sense faith is not a sacrifice of the intellect but mental health (sanitas mentis). Faith, therefore, does not relieve Christians of the desire to study and reflect; rather it spurs them on to the end. Nature is not destroyed by regeneration but restored.

Believers who want to devote themselves to the study of theology, accordingly, must prepare their minds for the task awaiting them. There is no admission to the temple of theology except by way of the study of the arts. Indispensable to the practitioner of the science of theology is philosophical, historical, and linguistic preparatory training. Philosophy, said Clement of Alexandria, “prepares the way for the most royal teaching.” Emperor Julian knew what he was doing when he deprived Christians of pagan learning; he feared he would be defeated by his own weapons.

This thinking, thus prepared and trained, has, in the main, a threefold task in theology.

First, it offers its services in finding the material. Scripture is the principle of theology. But the Bible is not a book of laws; it is an organic whole. The material for theology, specifically for dogmatics, is distributed throughout Scripture. Like gold from a mine, so the truth of faith has to be extracted from Scripture by the exertion of all available mental powers. Nothing can be done with a handful of proof texts. Dogma has to be built, not on a few isolated texts, but on Scripture in its entirety. It must arise organically from the principles that are everywhere present for that purpose in Scripture. The doctrines of God, of humanity, of sin, of Christ, etc., after all, are not to be found in a few pronouncements but are spread throughout Scripture and are contained, not only in a few proof texts, but also in a wide range of images and parables, ceremonies and histories. No part of Scripture may be neglected. The whole of Scripture must prove the whole system. …

-Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena (Baker Academic, 2003) 1:616-617.

Yet another completed blank bible project. Congrats to Joe McBee. Looks nice. For more information, see our handy guide to making your own blank bible.

A thought-provoking excerpt from Steve Nichols’s new book, Jesus Made In America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to The Passion of the Christ (IVP, 2008). These paragraphs are a nice example of the thoughtful evaluation Nichols uses as he critiques the Christology of American culture.

Nichols closes chapter 6–“Jesus on the Big Screen”–with these words:

“American Jesus films also invite us to use our imagination, even a sanctified imagination, to add to the biblical text. This furthers the trajectory that began in the nineteenth century in which the biblical accounts failed to address contemporary readers’ and viewers’ needs, which in turn legitimized the action of adding to the text (see chap. 3). The additions tend to have a strongly emotional appeal, embedding one’s encounter with Christ in experience, an experience limited by one’s cultural horizons. The Jesus of Scripture comes from outside, not from within, our cultural horizons, standing above, over and even, at times, against those horizons as the Lord and Savior.

The Jesus of American film, however, looks more like a homegrown action hero. At least that’s the conclusion of Stephenson Humphries-Brooks. He sees America’s fixation “to identify with, cast itself as, and become a hero in its own view” as underlying the development of Jesus as the action hero in this wave of Jesus films. Even Gibson’s The Passion speaks to ‘America’s preferred view of itself as a suffering hero.’ This leads Humphries-Brooks to pose the question, ‘Where is the real Jesus? For Hollywood he is no longer to be found in the gospel tradition.’ He continues with an explanation of why the Jesus of the Gospels no longer suffices, ‘We seem to desire a new kind of more heroic and more reassuring Savior,’ adding, ‘Hollywood certainly seems willing to create and to market him to us.’ In the turning from the Christ of Scripture to the cinematic savior, ‘we have lost those limits and questions posed by the individual Gospel portraits of Jesus that have from time to time ameliorated the tendency of all readers, the faithful and the not-so faithful, to see in him what they want to see.’ We have made Jesus a celluloid version of our own image. Maybe, at the end of the day, that is the true controversy of Jesus films.”

-Stephen J. Nichols, Jesus Made In America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to The Passion of the Christ (IVP, 2008), pp. 171-172.