I plan to write and post short reviews as a way of condensing my thoughts about the books I read. These will in no way be exhaustive, but I do hope that they might give you good ideas as to the next cover you'll crack open to explore.
T.H.L. Parker published his Portrait of Calvin in 1954 to provide those interested in John Calvin with something different than the many excellent biographies chronicling his life and work. As he presents it, this work is to a biography what a watercolor painting is to a photograph. Though it captures the same scene, it does so with a different intention. It was obvious to me as I read that Parker truly knows Calvin. He has done more than read Calvin. He has spent time with the man behind the volumes, pondered his motives and meditated on the workings of his soul. This kind of care combined with years of careful scholarship has produced an account well worth reading to more than just Calvinists. As I took in the Portrait, several features of the subject (Calvin) struck as intensely admirable.
1. Calvin was a true scholar.
On the two legs of natural intelligence and ferocious work ethic he ran swiftly and tirelessly toward knowledge. From language to philosophy to patristics to the Scriptures, whatever field Calvin approached he mastered. Interestingly enough, Parker points out that Calvin could not be considered the leading mind of his day in any specific area of study. This may be true, but the image he paints of the theologian is one of a master synthesizer who had a keen for seeing how each idea fit with the next and the next and the next. He understood how to understand things, and once he did he would hold fast.
2. Calvin was a man of conviction.
He says of himself: "I am one to whom the law of my heavenly Master is so dear that the cause of no man on earth will induce me to flinch from maintaining it with a pure conscience." Indeed, the theologian's Christ was so dear to him that no earthly cause or petition would cause him to consciously and willfully transgress. Once he became convinced of something, no lust of the flesh, potential comfort, or worldly treasure to be gained could sway him from it. Of course, this made him an exceedingly difficult man to oppose or correct, and this proved his occasional downfall. That being said, where would the church be if Calvin were any other way?
3. Calvin obeyed.
Ever the scholar, all John Calvin wanted was a quaint life spent filling pages with theological masterpieces. In fact, as I read, I found myself wanting the same for the man. But, as many of you know, this was not the calling God placed on his life. As he looked upon the infamous Geneva, the eyes of his soul strangely saw Nineveh. As he looked back at the life of his dreams, it bore the mythical mark of Tarshish. It seemed as though the one most equipped for the academy would serve the Church of God from the pulpit, and the amazing thing is that this did not inhibit him. At heart he was not a churchman, but he set himself to serve the church in Geneva, and still found the spare moments to produce some 50 odd volumes of collected works. God called. Calvin obeyed.
4. Calvin had blind spots.
500 years changes a lot of things. Sometimes it can provide much-needed clarity, and sometimes it can do just the opposite. From his vantage point in the 16th century, Calvin saw the burning of a heretic as a price worth paying to gain a self-governed church. The Roman Catholic custom had calloused his heart and the hearts of every other person to the atrocity of such a deed. Encountering this reality again caused me to consider that callouses that American Christianity may bear. What of the atrocity of pornography? The insidious pride of self-promotion? The cowardly willingness to never share the gospel? The rat-race of materialism? A church who would silently condone idolatrous worship of money and things instead of or prior to her God would have no trouble lighting on fire a man who's doctrine offended her God if that was okay with the world around it. Calvin was, in ways, blind. He was also, in many ways, clear sighted enough to show us our blindness.
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