Calvin: reverence for God's Word, diligent labor

More from the Introductory sections…

“Calvin was an exegete and biblical theologian of the first rank…  It was Calvin preeminently who set the patter for the exercise of that sobriety which guards the science of exegesis against those distortions and perversions to which allegorizing methods are ever prone to subject the interpretation and application of Scripture.  The debt we owe to Calvin in establishing sound canons of interpretation and in thus directing the future course of exegetical study is incalculable.” -John Murray, from Introduction to Institutes, xvii

“Such veneration we ought indeed to entertain for the Word of God, that we ought not to pervert it in the least degree by varying expositions; for its majesty is diminished, I know not how much, especially when not expounded with great discretion and with great sobriety.  And if it be deemed a great wickedness to contaminate any thing that is dedicated to God, he surely cannot be endured, who, with impure, or even with unprepared hands, will handle that very thing, which of all thigns is the most sacred on earth.  It is therefore an audacity, closely allied to sacrilege, rashly to turn Scripture in any way we please, and to indulge our fancies as in sport; which has been done by many in former times.” -Calvin, from Introduction to Institutes, xvii

“No man can have the least knowledge of true and sound doctrine, without having been a disciple of the Scripture.  Hence originates all true wisdom, when we embrace with reverence the testimony which God hath been pleased therein to deliver concerning himself.  For obedience is the source, not only of an absolutely perfect and complete faith, but of all right knowledge of God.” -Calvin, Institutes, 1c. 6 s. 2

Again, on diligent labor

“As age and weakness grew upon him, so he hastened his labor; and, according to his petition to God, he in manner ended his life with his work, for he lived not long after.” -Institutes, Translator’s Preface, xx

Calvin's life, work ethic, devotion

From the Preface, on Calvin’s life, calling, work ethic, Godward devotion and dual pastoral emphases:

“News spread of his arrival, and prompted quick action on the part of Guillaume Farel (1489-1565), a dynamic, impetuous acquaintance of Calvin’s who had swayed much of French-speaking Switzerland toward Protestantism.  Farel immediately confronted Calvin and threatened him with the wrath of God if he didn’t stay in Geneva…. Calvin submitted to what he perceived to be God’s call upon his life. ‘I was so terror stricken that I did not continue my journey…’  At first Calvin gave biblical lectures.  Then he preached.” -Institutes, xii

“Now middle-aged, Calvin was overworked with daily preaching, teaching, and writing, producing comprehensive biblical commentaries and other books, including yet another expanded edition of the Institutes. Yet somehow he found time, at age fifity, to found the Geneva Academy…  But Calvin’s weak physical condition could not maintain the pace.  For the last five years of his life, until his death in 1564, at age 54, he worked through pain and sickness, sometimes so weak that he gave lectures in his bedroom. When urged to slow down, he quipped: ‘What? Would you have the Lord find me idle when he comes?’ Despite, or maybe because of, his international renown, Calvin requested that he be buried in an unmarked grave in a public cemetery – his whereabouts unknown except to his Maker-Redeemer.

In his final illness, Calvin commented on his own life: ‘While I am nothing, yet I know that I have prevented many disturbances that would otherwise have occurred in Geneva… God has given me the power to write… I have written nothing in hatred… but always I have faithfully attempted what I believed to be for the glory of God.’” -Institutes, xiv

“Calvin foundationally presumed a loving, merciful, personal – Trinitarian – God who actively sought out sinners to draw them to himself.  Calvin used two key phrases to describe the Christian life: that faith is the ‘principle work’ of the Holy Spirit; that prayer is the ‘principle exercise’ of faith.  All of life was to be lived before God as a prayer – as a dialogue with a personal God.  Within this life of prayer, in gratitude for the gracious gift of salvation, believers would live orderly, socially redemptive lives.” -Institutes, xvi

Hectic Sluggard, pt 2

The second installment in C.J. Mahaney’s blog series on being lazy and busy simultaneously.

Get you started.

In the past I thought that as long as I wasn’t idle, I wasn’t lazy. Not true. In fact, my laziness often shows up in the form of busyness.  read more…

Hectic Sluggards (not an oxymoron)

Wow.  It is possible to be both lazy and busy.  This article, from C.J. Mahaney’s blog, hit me between the eyes.  If applied, along with the other related articles that followed, this little blog series may be some of the most helpful stuff I’ve read this year.  Here’s an excerpt.

Lazy? Not me. I’m busy. Up early, up late. My schedule is filled from beginning to end. I love what I do and I love getting stuff done. I attack a daily to-do list with the same intensity I play basketball. Me lazy? I don’t think so!

Or at least I didn’t think so. That is, until I read about the difference between busyness and fruitfulness, and realized just how often my busyness was an expression of laziness, not diligence. … read more…

Don't Waste Your Job

A few members of the Lakeview worship team were able to stay over one extra night and attend Covenant Life Church on Sunday morning just after the WorshipGOD 2008 Conference.  We had a great time.

Mark Mitchell delivered an excellent message on how we can glorify God through our everyday work.  This topic is a major part of life and yet there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of resources for Christians to get a handle on what God’s Word has to say about life in the workaday world.

Discerning the call to preach

I remember riding in the back of Kevin Jonas’ car while attending Bible college. He asked me what I wanted to do in life to which I responded, “I just want to lead worship.” “Just lead worship?” he quipped. He was the worship leader for chapel services at the college, so he jokingly acted as though he was insulted.

It wasn’t until a few years (’94) later that I would preach my first sermon. I had gone to Canada to stand as best man for my good friend Bruce Crowe’s wedding. On Friday at lunch, he said, “Matt I want you to preach tonight. You can go pray about this, but you should spend most of the time getting the message together, because I don’t think God is going to let you off the hook on this.” You can not know how terrified I was. If there was a way to say no to Bruce that day I would have found it, but from the moment Bruce ‘volunteered’ me for this, I had the sinking feeling that Bruce was right – God wanted me to share that night with this youth group. I ended up mainly just sharing my personal testimony. I talked about the death of my father at age 12 and how God’s grace became real to me. Though I very much hope that the master tape for that message has been destroyed, I can say that I keenly felt the Holy Spirit’s presence that night. I started the message trembling and terrified but within moments there was a peace that settled over me. After it was all over and most everyone was gone a mother came forward and asked me to pray for her daughter. She was 12 and that week she had lost her father. I felt as if God was saying, “This is why you couldn’t say “no” this afternoon. I brought you here for her.” I walked toward the back and found the girl on the back pew. She looked up at me with her skinny face and long blonde hair, then with her shoulders and head curving down towards her legs began weeping. I felt God’s heart for her . I wept with them for several minutes, praying when I could.

In the following years I had a growing desire to understand Scripture and think on paper about various doctrinal and practical topics. I was called upon by different pastors to preach and felt both an increasing personal sense of a calling to preach as well as outside confirming voices from leaders God put in my life that this may be what God was calling me to do. These were the birthing years of what would become an increasing and indeed compelling desire to do what I most desired not to do – to preach God’s Word.

I don’t have time here to tell the rest of the story, but God would take me through several years of development and preparation before I came on full-time at Lakeview in 2002. I am still growing and developing. And I have grown much more as a result of being, if you will, thrown into the task of preaching. And I have wonderful mentors and friends who help me grow and mature. Pastors Keith Collins and Peter Davidson have given me scores of helpful encouragements, corrections and wisdom gained by thousands of given sermons and counseling sessions! “Matt,” Keith said early on, “you need to connect the doctrine of the passage to existing thought patterns and life issues people are facing.” “Matt,” says Peter in a fatherly tone, “you talked about boldness from Acts and only mentioned the Holy Spirit in one sentence.” I’ve benefited immeasurably by their input along with Jeff’s tremendous ability to encourage and sharpen me over these past 5 years.

Perhaps you too are starting to sense a possible call to pastoral ministry. If so, here are some helpful words from a man who has spent many years identifying, training and deploying pastors into the vineyards of local church ministry.

All young men, read this!

This is pure gold from Dr. Ray Van Neste on maturity and manhood. I found it convicting (especially his remarks on whining and complaining) and provoking. I think you will appreciate the wisdom here and the pull-no-punches style of Van Neste’s appeal. Let me whet your appetite with a few selected portions.

Here’s a slice from his thoughts on the question of when to pursue marriage:

I know some have told you that the way to take leadership, step up, progress in manhood is to get married. However, I must differ. Marriage is the last thing some of you need to be thinking of just now. You need to grow up first. I affirm what I think these others are getting at- start preparing yourself for marriage. Move Halo down your list of priorities in order to begin thinking about what sort of vocation you will pursue, how you’re going to pay your bills, etc. But much progress in this may be needed before you really start looking for a wife. If you are not right now getting your class work done, and fulfilling your comparatively light responsibilities as a single student then don’t even consider the prospects of marriage. Instead start working on growing up.

On work, laziness and work-aholism…

Expect to work. That is what God made you for. Reject laziness. See laziness not merely as a foible but as damnable sin, a dangerous cancer that can eat away your soul. Laziness and avoidance of work is a typical sin for men so wage a particularly diligent and merciless war against it in your own soul.
Yes, work-aholism is another error that affects men, but the answer is not laziness. In fact work-aholism is often a way of avoiding the really challenging work of caring for and leading one’s wife and children.
Work is good and ennobling. If this is not the way you think, change your thinking to adopt this biblical view. Reject the “live for the weekend” mentality. Instead, begin asking God and godly leaders what work He has put you here for. Find you calling. Yes, I know He created you for His glory, to be in relationship with Him and with others. But he also made you to work. For what task were you created? What work will you commit yourself to? You need to have some clear thoughts about this (not a full blueprint) before you can seriously consider marriage. Before you should take a wife you need to know where you’re taking her. You need to know what you intend to do in life. Of course God sometimes shifts things, and things change. But you need to have a goal. You need to know, to the best of your ability, under God, and in concert with godly, wise counsel, where you are headed.

The LCC pastors are sensing the need to rally the men of our church this coming year and, in stronger ways, to urge them to step up and, by God’s grace, press on towards God’s great purposes for us as men.

Resisting Adultescence

Adultescence or adultolescence, as it is being more popularly called is a huge dilemma in our day. In many places 25 is the new 18 as young adults sing the ToysRUs song and refuse to grow up and settle down.

Time magazine has done cover articles. Both secular news pieces as well as Christian-based studies are being done to see what’s happening among this generation of 20 somethings and approaching-20 somethings.  They’re also attempting to project the impact this will have on the culture as time goes on.

John Piper writes here on how churches can contend for maturity and resist the tide of adultescence. If you’re from Lakeview, you know how deeply I resonate with these things. When Al Mohler talked about this at New Attitude a few years ago it lit a fire in me that has only increased since then.

I thank God for the multiple marriages happening in our church. I was at a rehearsal for some good friends even tonight. They’ll be married by this time tomorrow. I thank God that someone from another church told a friend, “Oh that’s the church where the singles are encouraged to get married?” Well, if I might qualify that and say, “if you don’t sense a call to lifelong singleness, then Yes! Absolutely. We do encourage it. We encourage couples to pursue marriage with wisdom, but encourage them, we most certainly do.”

With that qualifier let me add that this is not to imply that the only way to mature is by getting married. Lifelong singleness is no less godly or noble or sanctifying than marriage is – provided (a big qualifier here) you’ve been called to that. All this said, I think that the major thing our victims or perpetrators – depending on how you want to diagnose it – of adultescence are afraid of is the commitment of marriage.

Piper’s call to the church here beats in my heart. I hope it beats in yours. I hope in our churches we become a part of the adultescence-resistance-effort for the glory of God.

The Quest

That was the name of a recent Sovereign Grace Ministries Conference for men that was held in Philadelphia. I just received the messages and have been listening through some of them and they are very good.

The messages spoke to issues of relationships and marriage, workplace, money, lust, raising the next generation – pretty much the whole panorama. Here are some of the actual titles.

The Perfect Man

Functional Masculinity

Enduring Temptation

The Pricetag of Discipleship

Men in the Marketplace

Why Honoring Women is Essential to Being a Man

The Pursuit: A Fresh Look at Courtship for Fathers, Singles, and Sons

What a Man is Alone On His Knees

For Single Men: Straight Talk on Friendship, Females, and Faith

I highly recommend that you buy/download some of the messages and take some time to get away with a notebook and a heart ready to be provoked to biblical manhood. May they serve as a fresh catalyst for growth toward doctrinal depth and practical godliness.

Providence, mystery, the will of God and you

One of my favorite recent reads was Discovering God’s Will, by Sinclair Ferguson. (You’ll have to get over the cover. It is off the charts on the cheesy cover scale.) When I read Ferguson I feel like I’m reading the words of a 300 year old pastor/grandfather. He bleeds Scripture and communicates with tremendous insight, wisdom, and clarity – and all of that in a tone that is endearing and gracious.

Few issues perplex us more than the struggle to discover the will of God for our individual lives. What should I major in? Whom should I marry? Am I ready for marriage yet? Should I change churches? Given two different job offers, how do I know which one to take?

These are the everyday questions that can start out as little ‘nags’ in our hearts and then turn into bullies that tyrannize our thoughts throughout the day and make it hard to trust in God’s grace and sovereignty and the sense in which He is not only superintending His universe but MY space in it.

Dr. Ferguson certainly doesn’t answer all of our questions, but I do think that he puts the issue in a good framework here and gets us on the right footing as we begin to try to process our lives and where they are with reference to God’s plan and His specific purposes for us.

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