For Christmas this year my lovely wife got me McNeil's edition of Calvin's Institutes (This is Battle's translation, which in my experience is more readable than Beveridge's translation--it's worth the extra cash. However, I'd be happy to sell my copy of Beveridge to anyone who doesn't believe me :-). I thought it would be a shame to graduate with an MDiv not having read the Institutes and decided to make it my goal to read through them by graduation (that's only 100 pages a week). However, as the semester has progressed my goal has been modified (I'm a critical realist) and now I'm just aiming at finishing them some day.
In the mean time I am continuing to plod forward, even if it's just a few pages at a time and I have found the the time I invest always repays the effort. My mind has been sharpened and my soul has been fed. Calvin is one of the most devotional theologians I've ever read; if you don't believe me just read his intro. In many ways Calvin reads like Piper. Now I know that's a glaring anachronism, but in my ordo salutis I became a Piperite prior to becoming a Calvinist (though this would be an inversion of the logical order, it was my experience, temporally speaking - I fell in love with Christian Hedonism before I new it was Calvinism, before I knew both were contextualized expressions of Biblical Christianity!). Anyway, my point is if you like Piper, you'll love Calvin -- not just because of the commonality of their theology, but also because of their way with language. Anyway, I digress....
In the mean time I am continuing to plod forward, even if it's just a few pages at a time and I have found the the time I invest always repays the effort. My mind has been sharpened and my soul has been fed. Calvin is one of the most devotional theologians I've ever read; if you don't believe me just read his intro. In many ways Calvin reads like Piper. Now I know that's a glaring anachronism, but in my ordo salutis I became a Piperite prior to becoming a Calvinist (though this would be an inversion of the logical order, it was my experience, temporally speaking - I fell in love with Christian Hedonism before I new it was Calvinism, before I knew both were contextualized expressions of Biblical Christianity!). Anyway, my point is if you like Piper, you'll love Calvin -- not just because of the commonality of their theology, but also because of their way with language. Anyway, I digress....
2 comments:
I
sorry,... I commend you as you attempt to read through the institues. I especally like your goal for finishing.
Post a Comment