Sermons on Job
Weight | 2.81 kg |
---|---|
Dimensions | 22.5 × 14.5 × 13.5 cm |
binding | Cloth-bound, ePub, Kindle (.mobi) |
format | Book |
isbn | 9781800402232 |
page-count | 2,120 |
scripture | Job |
topic | Biblical Studies, Preaching & Teaching |
NEW RELEASE
Book Description
The name of John Calvin (1509-64) is justly renowned in a number of contexts. The Reformation’s greatest systematic theologian, he was also a Christian strategist and transformer of society, as his enormous correspondence and his influence in Geneva bear witness. A prolific scholar, well-versed in the Latin of the academics, he also worked hard at communicating to ordinary men and women in his native French language.
Above all, Calvin was a pastor. Indeed, it has been said of him that he became a theologian in order to be a better pastor. Nowhere is that more clearly seen than in his sermons.
In 1549, the Compagnie des Étrangers, refugees who thought highly of his ministry, employed a professional scribe, Denis Raguenier, to record and translate Calvin’s sermons.
Thanks to the foresight of these sixteenth-century Christians we can still read the 159 sermons Calvin preached on the Book of Job on week-days in 1554-5. They abound in faithful and lively exposition, and remain one of the finest examples of evangelical preaching – faithful to the biblical text and thoughtfully applied to the individual and society.
In 1993 the Banner of Truth Trust reprinted a facsimile edition of Arthur Golding’s 1574 translation of Calvin’s sermons on Job. At that time the publisher expressed the hope that ‘Perhaps one day the massive work of retranslating Calvin from the original french into modern English will be done.’ That day has now well and truly come! Several new translations of Calvin’s sermons have recently been published (on Ephesians, Galatians, 2 Samuel 1-13, Acts 1-7, Gen. 1-20, The Beatitudes, Luke 1-2, etc.) and a new translation of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (1541 ed.) has also recently been added to this impressive list of volumes. Now, thanks to Dr Rob Roy McGregor, all of Calvin’s 159 sermons on Job have been translated into modern, colourful, and vigorous English.
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Richard C Ross –
The production values of this colossal undertaking are as we expect from The Banner of Truth: excellence. Of course, these volumes are self-recommending. I only offer a couple of observations…
In his introduction, Derek Thomas contrasts the hermeneutics of Calvin with those of the early church Fathers. The latter depends on finding ‘Christ in all the Scriptures’; a Biblical priority, anchored in the teaching of our Lord and the Apostles. Calvin discounts this style of exposition, aversive to typology and allegory. His exegetical method, vis-a-vis a Christocentric response to the Old Testament, is consequently open to question. I enthusiastically recommend Archibald G. Brown’s glowing sermon on John 5.46, ‘He Wrote of Me’ (in ‘The Face of Jesus Christ’) and John Owen’s ‘Meditations on the Glory of Christ’, both in their way magisterial examples of a Christocentric habit of reading Scripture.
Calvin seems curiously insensitive to the irony of situations. Sayings of the ‘friends’ are generally treated as so much wise counsel; while, in the scheme of the book and in the context in which they are spoken, much of what they contribute is at least hypocritical and self-condemnatory, at worse utter nonsense. Foolish remarks are not metamorphosed into infallible truth by being recorded in Scripture.
Concomitantly, Calvin’s response is strangely repetitious; in contrast to his commentaries’ ‘lucid brevity’. There’s a profuse stringing-out of theological commonplaces. The situation is peculiar to the book of Job, as much of the ‘friends’ contribution amounts to no more than theological banalities; further compromised by their entire trajectory being off target. In this context, and in written form, endlessly drawing-out their contributions becomes tedious.