Happy 500th birthday, John Calvin!
Happy birthday, John Calvin! 500 years ago today, the famous reformer and theologian was born in France. His preaching and writing—especially his most famous work, Institutes of the Christian Religion—have had an enormous influence on Christianity through the centuries after his death.
Here are a few interesting Calvin-related resources from the Gospel.com community and around the web:
- The Wikipedia entry on John Calvin is a good place to start.
- The sovereignty of God (on which the much-debated doctrine of predestination is based) was one of the central elements of Calvin’s theology. The Christian History Institute has a nice introduction to Calvin’s thoughts on God’s sovereignty, and an excerpt from the Institutes in which Calvin lays out his thoughts on the matter.
- Much has been written about Calvin online, but if you prefer to dive right into his original writings, you might try SermonIndex’s collection of famous John Calvin sermons in MP3. (Recorded by modern preachers, of course—alas, John Calvin himself had no iPod or MP3 player.)
- And if you’re feeling really bold, you can jump into the massive Institutes of the Christian Religion itself at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
Now go enjoy your weekend. And if you figure out how to fit 500 candles onto that John Calvin birthday cake you’re baking, please send us pictures…
Well, I AM a presbo but hesitate at getting too excited about a French lawyer. (Actually, I never get too enthusiastic about ANY lawyer and certainly not a French one!) Besides, I think ol’ John probably believed in an atemporal God – probably not true.