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.
Steven Lawson contributed a chapter on John Calvin as “The Preacher of God’s Word.” Here is a summary of that chapter, outlining what Steven Lawson suggests are the ten distinguishing marks of Calvin’s preaching.
1. John Calvin’s preaching was biblical in its substance.
“The Reformer stood firmly on the chief cornerstone of the Reformation—sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”). … The preacher, Calvin believed, has nothing to say apart from Scripture.”
2. John Calvin’s preaching was sequential in its pattern.
“For the duration of his ministry, Calvin’s approach was to preach systematically through entire books of the Bible. … Calvin preached from the New Testament on Sunday mornings, from the New Testament or the Psalms on Sunday afternoons, and from the Old Testament every morning of the week, every other week. In this consecutive fashion, Calvin preached through most of the books of the Scriptures.”
Dr. James White:
It is a false dichotomy to say that we must choose between the moving of the Spirit OR the preached word of God. If I lived in the time of the early Church and lets say that the Apostle Paul came to my home church, I for one would not want to run around the building, dance, or sing a song 100 times, thinking we were all being “Spirit led.” I would want to sit quietly, reverently, listening to every word to hear the Spirit anointed word of God proclaimed, correctly and with power… and, I would want the exact same thing next time too, and the next. That IS the moving of the Spirit.