“Preaching is the most public of ministries and therefore, the most conspicuous in its failure and the most subjective to the temptation of hypocrisy. It is imperative only that those who undertake it are appropriately gifted by the Holy Spirit. Such ‘gifting’ includes prophecy, evangelism, the consciousness of an unavoidable call, providential endowments, and outward confirmation as evidenced by the Holy Spirit’s making the preaching effort into a new Bethlehem.
There is no special honor in being so gifted–there is only special pain. The pulpit calls them to it as the sea calls its sailors, and, like the sea, it batters and bruises and does not rest, but always there is the lure of its ‘better and incomparable’ society.
To preach, to really preach, is to die naked a little at a time, and to know each time you do it that you must do it again. Only one certainty sustains the preacher: That God never denies a man peace except to give him glory.”
– Bruce Thielemann
Published in celebration of the five hundredth anniversary of John Calvin’s birth (2009), John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine, and Doxology corrects the many caricatures of John Calvin, as each chapter progressively paints a portrait of a man who truly had, as the title suggests, a heart for devotion, doctrine, and doxology.