As the previous two posts demonstrated (#1, #2), Amandus Polanus envisioned Christians interpreting the Scriptures with the help of the church. In colloquial terms, this means that no Christian can read their Bibles well by themselves on a private island…
October 11 marks the 486th anniversary of the death of Huldrych Zwingli (1484 – 1531) at the Battle of Kappel, where he acted as chaplain and flag-bearer for the troops. In spite of being one of the key protagonists of…
Sola Scriptura is one of the slogans that have come to be attached to the Protestant Reformation.While the so-called five solas, as descriptive terms of Protestant theology, originated long after the sixteenth-century, they capture well some of the primary emphases…
As far back as the late medieval period, men such as John Wycliffe (c. 1329–1384) and Jan Hus (1373–1415) called the church of their day to return to Scripture. When challenged by hostile church officials, Hus answered his opponents, “Show…
God sent forth the power of his Word in the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The Reformation served as a dynamic motivation and catalyst for change and progress wherever its influence reached. Many would credit Martin Luther as the driving…
For John Calvin, worship was central to life – it is why man exists. Worship was also central to his understanding of the Reformation, for he believed that the church’s return to true worship was the flowering fruit of all…
It would be difficult to underestimate the impact John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion have had on the Church. Yet while Calvin’s most significant theological work has been highly valued as a theological exposition of the Christian faith, his…
While Calvin’s life certainly did leave ministers a worthy example, we will consider now the second matter of whether his method of preaching was likewise exemplary. It is perfectly possible for a man to be marked by great measures of…
John Calvin is widely known as an accomplished Reformer, Bible commentator, theologian, and preacher. He was these things and more. He also had keen insight into the human soul and contributed greatly to our understanding of a Christian epistemology and…
To say that Calvin had a difficult life is an understatement. He suffered many bodily ailments such as asthma, migraine headaches, ulcerated hemorrhoids and stomach ulcers, and yet by God’s grace, he continued to persevere through all of these trials,…
