John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine & Doxology

By: Burk (editor) Parsons

Book Overview

John Calvin's name evokes powerful images, most of them negative. In the minds of many, he is perceived as an ivory-tower theologian who was harsh and unreasonable, the driving force behind a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1567691064
• ISBN13: 9781567691061
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Reformation Trust Publishing
• Length: 257 Pages
• Weight: 4.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

John Calvin

I learned so much about John Calvin from this book, it is such a great read. This book reveals aspects about John Calvin that most people don't know and shows his heart for the Lord and for ministry. The collection of authors who wrote the chapters in the book is quite impressive and it is what makes it such a great book. Not only does the book contain biographical information about Calvin but it also shows his work as a pastor, teacher, husband and friend. Certainly this book contains theology but it also reveals the heart in the man behind the theologian.

The Life, Ministry and Teachings of This Influential Reformer

John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine & Doxology examines Calvin's life, ministry, and teachings in nineteen chapters, each written by a different well-known pastor, teacher, or theologian. Besides Burk Parsons' preface and first chapter and Iain Murray's foreward, there are chapters written by Jerry Bridges, Sinclair Ferguson, Joel Beeke, John MacArthur, Thabiti Anyabwile, Phil Johnson, and many more notable Reformedish Christian leaders. The first eight chapters are primarily about Calvin the man. There is a chapter which contains a brief biographical sketch and chapters on the various mantles Calvin wore in his service to God: Reformer, churchman, preacher, counselor, and writer. Taken together, the picture we see is of a man of many gifts, all used in service to God. The seventh chapter,"The Counselor to the Afflicted" by W. Robert Godfrey, includes excerpts from Calvin's extensive pastoral correspondence which show his tenderhearted care for people who were suffering. To a father who had lost his son, he wrote: "When I first received the intelligence of the death ... of your son Louis, I was so utterly overpowered that for many days I was fit for nothing but to grieve; and albeit I was somehow upheld before the Lord by those aids wherewith he sustains our souls in affliction among men, however, I was almost a nonentity." Not exactly the stone-cold ivory-towered theologian of the common Calvin caricature, is he? The rest of the chapters--ten of them--are essays on the teaching of Calvin on doctrines that he emphasized, starting with one on the supremacy of Jesus Christ and another on the work of the Spirit. Then there are five chapters that correspond, roughly, to what are known as the five points of Calvinism: "Man's Radical Corruption"; "Election and Reprobation", "Redemption Defined", "Transforming Grace", and "A Certain Inheritance". Finishing up are chapters that present Calvin's thoughts on union with Christ, justification, the christian life, and prayer. The last chapter, "The Communion of Men with God" by Joel Beeke, which looks at Calvin's thoughts on prayer, was my favorite, I think, because it was what I needed to read right now. Calvin, Beeke writes, "considered prayer to be holy and familiar conversations with God, our heavenly Father; reverently speaking, it is family conversation, or even intimate covenantal conversation, in which the believer confides to God as a child confides in his father. Prayer is 'an emotion of the heart within, which is poured out and laid open before God.' In prayer, we both communicate and commune with our Father in heaven, feeling our transparency in His presence. Like Christ in Gethsemane, we cast our 'desires, sighs, anxieties, fears, hopes, and joys into the lap of God.' In other words, through prayer, a Christian puts his 'worries bit by bit on God.'" The image of taking my worries "bit by bit" (Most of our worries are, in the scheme of things, small, you know.) and placi

A Must-read book

"John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine & Doxology" makes the life and writings of Calvin come alive. This is an easy read and a must-read for any serious student of theology.

Another Good One

If you are like me and you listen to a lot of different people and you here a lot of different stories, you know how varied a view on historical people such as Calvin you can get. While it is natural for people to have different perspectives and opinions on people, these are often formed with little information and facts. The stories are filtered through the personalities of storytellers and often may be distorted because of personal opinions. That being said facts are facts and they stand the test of time. What i appreciated about this book was that presentation. The facts of John Calvins life have effected many in todays society without our knowing it. I especially enjoyed and found encouraging the story of his life in the many different facets. In today's society I can get very discouraged and look at many of the things he went through and see a comparison to todays assault and need for Reformation. Today doesn't compare to what he went through and had to deal with but the need for John Calvins is certainly needed just as bad. While looking at his life we can get encouragement and see that with the life of one man, God can do much. Every act of obedience prevents an act of Disobedience. I encourage any and all that desire to learn of Calvin to pick up this book and have the facts for yourself so that one more person has the facts for them self and can know the man as best they could.

Recommended resource by contemporary authors

There are so many caricatures of Calvinism (and Arminianism) found on the web that it can be difficult to know exactly what Calvinism really is. What better way to do that than to read about John Calvin as written by contemporary historians, authors, preachers and theologians? "...the amount of misrepresentation to which Calvin's theology has been subjected has been enough to prove his doctrine of total depravity several times over!" -J.I. Packer, The Collected Shorter Writings of J. I. Packer There are so many quotable quotes in this book it's difficult to choose which ones to include in this review to whet the appetite of anyone who might be interested in reading the book. Iain H. Murray writes this in the Foreward: "Sometimes the impression can be given to other Christians that we regard `Calvinism' as co-terminus with Christianity and that we think all gospel preaching can be fitted into the five points. The five points are not to be depreciated, but God is incomprehensibly greater than our understanding, and there are other truths to be preached far beyond our capacity to harmonize. Calvin cautions us here. In speaking of the indiscriminate invitations of Christ in John 5, he observes, `He is ready to give himself, provided that they are only willing to believe.' He can say that `nothing of all that God wishes to be saved shall perish' and yet warn his hearers lest the opportunity of salvation `pass away from us.' He speaks of Christ's `great kindness' to Judas and affirms, `Christ does not lay Judas under the necessity of perishing.' If on occasions, when in controversy with opponents of Scripture, Calvin unduly presses the implications of a doctrine, he guards against that temptation in his general preaching and teaching. He does not hesitate to teach that God loves those who will not be saved; indeed, he writes that God `wishes all men to be saved,' and to the objection that God cannot wish what He has not ordained, it is enough for Calvin to confess: `Although God's will is simple, yet great variety is involved in it, as far as our senses are concerned. Besides, it is not surprising that our eyes should be blinded by intense light.' Our duty, he would say, is to adore the loftiness of God rather than investigate it." The book is very accessible to any audience and has very few words that need to be looked up unless the reader is a very new Christian and very unfamiliar with Biblical terms. Some of the first few chapters about Calvin's life (each written by a different author) have some repeated information. To put it in software terms, I'm not sure if this is a feature or a bug. Meaning, I'm not sure if more editing should have been done or if it was intentional to let each author's account be left alone. In any case, each account fills in some details that others hadn't and none of it is conflicting. For the most part the book is not defensive or polemic. Arminianism isn't brought up much until the chapter by John MacArthur enti