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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Christianity > Protestantism & Protestant Churches > Calvinist, Reformed & Presbyterian Churches > General
So you think you're a Protestant? Can you tell me what you are
protesting? This is the question we all must ask ourselves.
Unfortunately, it is the question many seem to be without an answer
for. Take a look into history regarding the Roman Catholic Church
and the Reformed Protestant views of the doctrines of grace. It is
only when we know our past and our present that we can truly
understand the marvelous grace of God and how He has chosen to
display His love for us through a means that we can only partially
grasp this side of Heaven.
The translator has done a truly excellent job of putting Calvin's
work into a very readable English format. If you have ever wanted
to read Calvin, here is your chance. Frankly, one might compare the
study of Calvin to the opportunity to either sit with Christ on the
mount or later to hear Matthew retell the story. Why go to a
secondary source when Calvin is so easy to understand and so
readily available in this edition? These pages bring Calvin right
into your living room, where you learn the reformed faith first
hand. To sum it up: Pastor, student, or layman, if you don't have
this work in your study collection, such a collection is
incomplete. Complete enough to suit the demands of the scholar,
written so the average layman can understand, here is John Calvin.
This is a terrific tool in understanding our Reformed faith from
the very father of the reformation that led to the Presbyterian
Church.
In Calvin's Company of Pastors, Scott Manetsch examines the
pastoral theology and practical ministry activities of Geneva's
reformed ministers from the time of Calvin's arrival in Geneva
until the beginning of the seventeenth century. During these seven
decades, more than 130 men were enrolled in Geneva's Venerable
Company of Pastors (as it was called), including notable reformed
leaders such as Pierre Viret, Theodore Beza, Simon Goulart, Lambert
Daneau, and Jean Diodati. Aside from these better-known epigones,
Geneva's pastors from this period remain hidden from view, cloaked
in Calvin's long shadow, even though they played a strategic role
in preserving and reshaping Calvin's pastoral legacy. Making
extensive use of archival materials, published sermons, catechisms,
prayer books, personal correspondence, and theological writings,
Manetsch offers an engaging and vivid portrait of pastoral life in
sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Geneva, exploring the
manner in which Geneva's ministers conceived of their pastoral
office and performed their daily responsibilities of preaching,
public worship, moral discipline, catechesis, administering the
sacraments, and pastoral care. Manetsch demonstrates that Calvin
and his colleagues were much more than ivory tower theologians or
"quasi-agents of the state," concerned primarily with dispensing
theological information to their congregations or enforcing
magisterial authority. Rather, they saw themselves as spiritual
shepherds of Christ's Church, and this self-understanding shaped to
a significant degree their daily work as pastors and preachers.
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