2009 sees the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin. Here is a short biography of his influential life.
John Calvin was a Frenchman, born in 1509 at Noyon, north east of Paris, into a strongly Roman Catholic family. He went to the University of Paris, where he studied for the priesthood and then as a lawyer.
Turned by God
At sometime in 1532/33 he was converted. He did not like to talk about himself, so we know very little about it, but he does mention it once in the Preface to his Commentary on the Psalms. ‘God drew me from obscure and lowly beginnings and conferred on me the most honourable office of herald and minister of the gospel. My father intended me for theology from my early childhood. But when he reflected that the career of the law proved everywhere lucrative.. he changed his mind. I was called away from the study of philosophy to learning law…I tried my best to work hard, yet God at last turned my course… What happened first was that by an unexpected conversion he tamed to teachableness a mind too stubborn for its years — for I was so strongly devoted to the superstitions of the Papacy that nothing less could draw me from such depths of mire. And so this mere taste of true godliness set me on fire with such a desire for progress…Before a year had slipped by anybody who longed for a purer doctrine kept on coming to learn from me, still a beginner, a raw recruit.’
The re-emergence of heavy shepherds
What would you think if you received a letter from your church leaders that read like this? ‘Are church members …