my life and my doctrine

I’ve been told plenty of times, that Calvin’s Institutes were written as a framework and springboard into Calvin’s commentaries. I’m ashamed to admit that it took until this morning before I really appreciated how good his commentaries are. I’ve been preparing for a Bible study on 1 Timothy 2. After checking out Tim Challies’ recommendations of commentaries on the Pastoral Epistles, I’d bought Calvin’s.

So, what was so good about it?

1. It’s easy to read as Calvin deals with the text phrase by phrase. It’s written like someone speaking, in a friendly manner, and preaching, in an exhortatory manner. Calvin wants to convince us of what he’s discovered in the Bible.
2. It’s absolutely soaked in Scripture. The most refreshing thing about this commentary is how often Calvin quotes other parts of the Bible. He clearly lets the Bible speak for itself. He demonstrates a supreme confidence in God’s word to be clear and let Scripture explain Scripture. When dealing with 1 Tim 2.6 – ‘who gave himself as a ransom for all men’, there are a couple of sentences of his explanation, though most of the paragraph is quotes of Rom 8.34; Hebrews 7.17 and Hebrews 4.14-5.3. Further, unlike many commentaries or other Christian books I read, the text of the verses are written out in full, not just referenced. More than that, they are included into the body of the text. For some reason I’m prone to glancing over quoted bits of Scripture when they are block quoted in a page of text. This decision of the editors made me read more Bible than I normally do while reading a commentary, rather than assuming I’m the studious type who will look up every reference as they come.
3. It’s relevant to his day and age. He’s not just explaining a text for a technical insight. Rather it is evident that his goal is to address the issues of the day and in particular the teachings of the Roman Catholic church that he wants to refute.
4. It’s relevant today. One of the consequences of using Scripture to explain Scripture is that it is still relevant today in our society. It’s not as though there were anecdotes of the 16th century equivalent of Facebook, sport or other social occasion.

Pick it up and read one.

At evening church we’ve been looking at Ephesians and last night I preached on Ephesians 3.14-21. It’s a fantastic prayer asking God to change us from the inside out to make us a more suitable dwelling place for him. I had a question on the tear off slips asking about whether we can be fit for God to live in us and thought I’d share my response to a wider audience.

I think the prayer in Eph 3.16-17 is that we continually be made a more and more suitable dwelling place for God (see also Eph 2.22). This means that though God’s Spirit now lives in us, he is continuing to change and shape us to be more like Christ. ie filled with the fullness of God (3.19).

Does it mean we can be perfect? No. I don’t think so. I do think we will be made perfect on the last day. However, in the meantime, we are to keep praying that God keep changing us.

Can we fully comprehend Christ’s love? Again, I don’t think so. However, we grow and mature as Christians, as we appreciate and know better his love for us.

It is the love of Christ that will motivate us to seek to be more like Christ. It is the love of Christ that will drive us to more prayerful dependence on God. And, it is the love of Christ that will drive us to want God to be glorified in all things.

PS I thought about blogging about the sermon after reading a Sydney Anglican article on exactly that.

I read this book in December or January and was convicted about what it is that I preach. Sure, it’s 20 years old. And sure, the font size in my copy is big, so it seemed easier to read and fast to finish.

John Piper is incredibly shaped by the Puritan Jonathan Edwards. It felt at points that he was summarising and paraphrasing Edwards on preaching. The result is a book which challenged me to reconsider what is the content of my preaching and how I think about it.

The content of preaching, Piper argues, ought to be the supremacy of God. His incredible sovereignty as the creator and sustainer of this universe. This is not to be a philosophical reflection on the other-ness of God. Rather a recognition of how holy he is and how sinful we are before him. This is helpful for a number of reasons:

1. We take the focus off ourselves.
   It is all too easy for my sermons to be addressing myself and the congregation as individuals, encouraging us to godly thinking and living and yet, not reflecting the worth, the glory or honour that God deserves. The danger I see is that a person-centred ministry could easily become moralistic, legalistic or this worldly.
2. We see the grace of God in his gift of Christ on the cross.
   As we refocus on our great and supreme God, we will appreciate the depravity of our sin, our helplessness before God and our utter dependancy on Him. This will turn us once again, back to the gospel, back to the message that Christ died for sinners and that we are saved by grace through faith.
3. We thank God for His Spirit, that enlightens our hearts and minds to know him.
   Therefore, the privilege that it is to preach is not due to personal merit, but the gracious gift of God working through his Word, by his Spirit.

This book also encouraged me to think differently about preaching. It is important to work on the ‘common graces’ of communication, eg how I speak, eye contact, facial expressions (or lack of in my case) etc. But being more dynamic doesn’t make up for lack of depth in content. The challenge for me is to keep working on the content, that I may be continually plumbing the depths of God’s character and then teaching this to others. If I haven’t learned anything in the preparation, I imagine not much will be taught.

It’s my goal to keep reading books on preaching. As I do, I am more committed to preparing better and often that means less time for blogs.