John Calvin: The Transformation of Christendom
July/August 2009
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Humanistic motives have often governed commendable causes within the church. Man seeks to gain an advantage over God even with his virtues and obedience.
Man’s abuse of God’s creation is real enough, but the sin is not against the earth, but God. The answer to our irresponsible use of the creation is the repudiation of our rebellion in repentance and faith and a return to the disciplined life of faithfulness, work, and dominion.
The year 2009 commemorates the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin (1509–64), the greatest of the Protestant Reformers.
But “quiet times” are only the tip of the iceberg among the various strains of programmitis infecting Christianity. There are many other beloved practices that also fail the Scriptural Sniff Test. The fact that they sound so reasonable and beneficial has made them difficult to identify and dislodge—we cling to them while simultaneously proclaiming Sola Scriptura and Semper Reformanda. Binding unbiblical burdens on people’s backs was not a practice limited to the Pharisees and scribes—it yet liveth.
Who owns the future? That should be the question we ask ourselves. We don’t. For the average Christian, a faulty eschatology, and a preoccupation with personal security, represent a willful forfeiture of a distinctly Christian future. Our opponents do not think this way, and our universal indifference to godly dominion is but one more indicator that the future is theirs—all in the providence of God, of course.
Christians will always have opposition from those who are the seed of the serpent when it comes to our shaping, changing, and challenging the way the world system operates. We must take Jesus at His Word, “[U]pon this rock [the testimony that Jesus is Lord] I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt.16:18). Now that’s the sort of recruitment promise that engenders confidence and resolve!
A poem about mentoring and being mentored.