happy birthday, John Calvin!

Today, of course, is July 10, the 500th birthday of John Calvin. John Piper says that we all ought to have one dead hero and one living hero, whose lives we should study as carefully as we can. Calvin, for me, is quickly becoming the dead hero. Biographies, especially this year, are legion, and our own newsletter is featuring an excellent article on the importance of Calvin. Ephesians 4 speaks of the gifts that God has given to men--one of those gifts is teachers. Today I celebrate God's goodness to mankind, in that He extended His mercy and grace to a blinded and shepherd-less people by raising up a man like Calvin.

One of things about reading Calvin that has amazed me is that the issues he dealt with are the same issues we are dealing with today! There is truly nothing new under the sun. Therefore, his sense of urgency and his need for God ring loudly with me. This following prayer has a sense of exhortation and rebuke that I, you, we would do well to heed.

Grant, Almighty God, that as thou shinest on us by thy word, we may not be blind at midnight, nor willfully seek darkness, and thus lull our minds asleep, but may we be roused daily by thy words, and may we stir up ourselves more and more to fear thy name to thus present ourselves and all our pursuits as a sacrifice to thee, that thou mayest peaceably rule, and perpetually dwell in us, until thou gatherest us to thy celestial habitation, where there is reserved for us eternal rest and glory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

John Calvin, Steward of God's Covenant: selected writings, ed. John F. Thornton and Susan B. Varenne (Random House: NY, 2006), 329.