Category: The Church

“Correspondingly, the preacher is the servant of that message. As preacher he is committed completely to the Bible.”

Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, p. 35

“Calvin is saying . . . that God is gracious, that Jesus Christ has made the satisfaction for our sin. But when this message is preached, its reality is present and (how could it therefore be otherwise?) effective . . . The reality was present, however, not through vivid imagination or power of language, but by the working of the Holy Spirit.”

Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, p. 29

“The pulpit is ‘the throne of God, from where he wills to govern our souls.’”

Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, p. 26

“Calvin is not telling the people that must remind themselves that God has spoken in Scripture but that, while listening to a sermon, they must ask themselves whether they are listening to God or a man. If the teaching is faithful to Scripture, then it is God who is speaking.”

Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, p. 24

“It is the humble position of preaching as derivative and subordinate that is precisely its glory.”

Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, p 23

“Those who cannot bear to be reproved had better look for another school-master than God. There are many who will not stand it: ‘What! is this the way to teach? Ho! we want to be won by sweetness.’ ‘You do? Then go and teach God his lessons!’”

Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, p. 14

“Teaching on its own is not sufficient, for we are cold and indifferent to God’s truth We need to be pierced. The preacher has to use vehemence, so that we may know that this is not a game.”

Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, p. 12

“The watchwords for preachers must be submission and obedience . . . he shows by what he does that he is not intruding himself at his own will and that he is not mixing in anything of his own dreams, but that he has and holds the pure truth of God” (Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, p. 11)