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One thing all of God’s people can do in an uncertain time such as ours is to pray fervently and regularly while trusting in God’s providential purposes, whatever these purposes might be. John Calvin is a useful guide here. His rules for prayer are wise and simple.

In his second rule, Calvin cautions against rote prayers arising from habit and cold hearts. What do we seek when we pray?

The Second Rule—Repentance and a Sincere Sense of Need

The Sense of Need Excludes Unreality

Let this be the second rule: that in our petitions we ever sense our own insufficiency, and earnestly pondering how we need all that we seek, join with this prayer an earnest—nay, burning—desire to attain it. For many perfunctorily intone prayers after a set form, as if discharging a duty to God. And although they admit it to be a necessary remedy for their ills, because it would be fatal to lack the help of God which they are beseeching, still it appears that they perform this duty from habit, because their hearts are meanwhile cold, and they do not ponder what they ask.

Calvin also cautions against praying for forgiveness when someone does not truly acknowledge they are sinners. Such people mock God and are merely going through the motions because they are “stuffed with depravity.”

Indeed, a general and confused feeling of their need leads them to prayer, but it does not arouse them, as it were in present reality, to seek the relief of their poverty. Now what do we account more hateful or even execrable to God than the fiction of someone asking pardon for his sins, all the while either thinking he is not a sinner or at least not thinking he is a sinner? Unquestionably something in which God himself is mocked! Yet, as I have just said, mankind is so stuffed with such depravity that for the sake of mere performance men often beseech God for many things that they are dead sure will, apart from his kindness, come to them from some other source, or already lie in their possession.

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John CalvinKim RiddlebargerDecember 11, 20242nd Rule of Prayer, Repentance and NeedComment

Calvin's First Rule of Prayer

We live under the threat of war and rumors of war, there is political and economic uncertainty following the election, and we face an increasingly immoral and hostile culture. One thing all of God’s people can do is pray as we trust in God’s providential purposes, as mysterious as these purposes might be.

Calvin’s treatment of prayer is very useful in helping us think about how and for what we ought to pray. We start with his first rule and sub points.

The First Rule: Reverence

Devout detachment required for conversation with God:

By this, Calvin meant clearing our minds and reflecting upon the great privilege of entering into God’s presence.

Now for framing prayer duly and properly, let this be the first rule: that we be disposed in mind and heart as befits those who enter conversation with God. This we shall indeed attain with respect to the mind if it is freed from carnal cares and thoughts by which it can be called or led away from right and pure contemplation of God, and then not only devotes itself completely to prayer but also, in so far as this is possible, is lifted and carried beyond itself. Now I do not here require the mind to be so detached as never to be pricked or gnawed by vexations, since, on the contrary, great anxiety should kindle in us the desire to pray.
Thus we see that God’s saintly servants give proof of huge torments, not to say vexations, when they speak of uttering their plaintive cry to the Lord from the deep abyss, and from the very jaws of death [cf. Ps. 130:1]. But I say that we are to rid ourselves of all alien and outside cares, by which the mind, itself a wanderer, is borne about hither and thither, drawn away from heaven, and pressed down to earth. I mean that it ought to be raised above itself that it may not bring into God’s sight anything our blind and stupid reason is wont to devise, nor hold itself within the limits of its own vanity, but rise to a purity worthy of God.

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John CalvinKim RiddlebargerNovember 22, 2024The first rule of prayerComment

John Calvin’s Six Reasons to Pray

We live under the threat of war and rumors of war, there is an upcoming national election bringing all sorts of political uncertainly, and we face an increasingly immoral and hostile culture. One thing all of God’s people can do is pray and trust in God’s providential purposes, as mysterious as these might be.

John Calvin gives us six reasons why prayer at such times is vital. His reasons are pastoral and well-worth consideration.

But, someone will say, does God not know, even without being reminded, both in what respect we are troubled and what is expedient for us, so that it may seem in a sense superfluous that he should be stirred up by our prayers—as if he were drowsily blinking or even sleeping until he is aroused by our voice? But they who thus reason do not observe to what end the Lord instructed his people to pray, for he ordained it not so much for his own sake as for ours. Now he wills—as is right—that his due be rendered to him, in the recognition that everything men desire and account conducive to their own profit comes from him, and in the attestation of this by prayers. But the profit of this sacrifice also, by which he is worshiped, returns to us. Accordingly, the holy fathers, the more confidently they extolled God’s benefits among themselves and others, were the more keenly aroused to pray. It will be enough for us to note the single example of Elijah, who, sure of God’s purpose, after he has deliberately promised rain to King Ahab, still anxiously prays with his head between his knees, and sends his servant seven times to look [1 Kings 18:42], not because he would discredit his prophecy, but because he knew it was his duty, lest his faith be sleepy or sluggish, to lay his desires before God.

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John CalvinKim RiddlebargerOctober 23, 2024Six reaons to pray Comment

Digging Up the Treasures of the Gospel — Calvin on the Necessity of Prayer

In light of these uncertain and tumultuous times (see my previous post, In Times of Worry), Calvin addresses the matter of the necessity of prayer by making appeal to the promises of God, which he likens to finding treasure.

The Necessity of Prayer

It is, therefore, by the benefit of prayer that we reach those riches which are laid up for us with the Heavenly Father. For there is a communion of men with God by which, having entered the heavenly sanctuary, they appeal to him in person concerning his promises in order to experience, where necessity so demands, that what they believed was not vain, although he had promised it in word alone. Therefore we see that to us nothing is promised to be expected from the Lord, which we are not also bidden to ask of him in prayers. So true is it that we dig up by prayer the treasures that were pointed out by the Lord’s gospel, and which our faith has gazed upon.
Words fail to explain how necessary prayer is, and in how many ways the exercise of prayer is profitable. Surely, with good reason the Heavenly Father affirms that the only stronghold of safety is in calling upon his name [cf. Joel 2:32]. By so doing we invoke the presence both of his providence, through which he watches over and guards our affairs, and of his power, through which he sustains us, weak as we are and well-nigh overcome, and of his goodness, through which he receives us, miserably burdened with sins, unto grace; and, in short, it is by prayer that we call him to reveal himself as wholly present to us. Hence comes an extraordinary peace and repose to our consciences. For having disclosed to the Lord the necessity that was pressing upon us, we even rest fully in the thought that none of our ills is hid from him who, we are convinced, has both the will and the power to take the best care of us.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 30.20.2

John CalvinKim RiddlebargerSeptember 25, 2024The Necessity of prayerComment

The Wisdom in John Calvin’s Exposition of 1 Corinthians 1:1-31

I have been spending a fair amount of time of late working through 1 Corinthians for the Blessed Hope Podcast, (Season Three — “God Is Faithful” A Deep Dive into 1 Corinthians) and for my re-edited exposition of 1 Corinthians in the Lectio Continua Series (Reformation Heritage Books). A couple of things have become very apparent to me.

First, although often overlooked among the Reformed (who seem more at home in Galatians, Romans, and Ephesians—Paul’s doctrinal epistles) I am repeatedly struck by how an occasional letter (like 1 Corinthians) speaks so powerfully to many of the issues the church is facing today—especially since a number of the same issues confronting Christians in a Greco-Roman pagan city such as Corinth have resurfaced before our very eyes. If you haven’t read or studied Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians in awhile I encourage you to do so.

Second, having read much of Calvin’s commentary on 1 Corinthians for these projects, it is apparent that Calvin was very much interested in ecclesiology—a major theme in Paul’s letter. As Tadataka Maruyama points out, at the urging of Farel, Calvin completed this commentary in November of 1545 and saw it published the next year—at a time when Calvin was very much concerned with “the legitimate form of the church,” which, as Calvin argues, was revealed in the two marks of a church, Word and Sacrament. This explains why Calvin’s commentary has such sharp responses to the Anabaptists, Libertines, and Nicodemites of his day—the latter a reference to someone who conceals their true views to avoid persecution or conflict. Antecedents to the teaching of all of these groups can indeed be found in first century Corinth and Calvin made much of this fact in his commentary.[1]

Calvin’s work on 1 Corinthians might just be his best commentary and should not be overlooked. Calvin is feisty in places (as is Paul), at times he manifests a wry sense of humor, and his pastoral heart and wisdom come through in so many instances throughout. We ought to keep in mind that Calvin is doing something quite new when writing this commentary—he is looking to Paul for aid in developing a Reformed (Presbyterian) ecclesiology for the Genevan church while at the same time wrestling with the interconnectedness of like-minded churches in different locales with prominent and independent leaders (Farel, Bucer, Bullinger etc.,). This commentary is a real gem and you can find it here.

To whet your whistle to read and study 1 Corinthians and/or check out Calvin’s commentary here are a number of quotes from Calvin from his commentary[2]. These are but a few brief examples from the first chapter of 1 Corinthians.

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Paul on the Nature and Danger of the Issues Facing the Corinthians

During Paul’s absence false apostles had crept in, not, in my opinion, to disturb the Church openly with wicked doctrines, or designedly to undermine sound doctrine; but, priding themselves in the splendour and magnificence of their address, or rather, being puffed up with an empty loftiness of speech, they looked upon Paul’s simplicity, and even the Gospel itself, with contempt (Volume 1, Page 37).

Note: when Calvin speaks of “false apostles,” we may immediately think of the Judaizers in Galatia. But Calvin quickly clarifies who these individuals were—those enamored with Greek wisdom—and what was driving them, ambition.

They afterwards, by their ambition, gave occasion for the Church being split into various parties; and, last of all, reckless as to every thing, provided only they were themselves held in estimation, made it their aim to promote their own honor, rather than Christ’s kingdom and the people’s welfare (Volume 1, Page 37).

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John Calvin, Reformed Resources, Biblical TheologyKim RiddlebargerAugust 21, 2024Calvin on 1 CorinthiansComment