A Challenge: 2012 Calvin Institutes Prayers

 I am only one of many followers of Christ that have found much help in understanding the Gospel by reading the writings of John Calvin. His words are clear, true, Spirit-filled, and encouraging. I disagree with him insofar as he was writing in a very different culture and time than I live. But for the most part, Calvin has better things to say to us now than many contemporary authors/pastors, myself included.

His masterpiece was the "Institutes of the Christian Religion" written in Latin and then in French. It is to this work that I will be pouring over in the year of 2012 (you know, the year the world ends; even NASA is talking about it.) :)

I will be reading through this work through the year of 2012. It's actually not a daunting task - about ten-twenty minutes of reading a day. If you would like to follow along, I will be using the schedule prepared by the Foundation for Reformed Theology, found here on their website. Thank you, FRT! While this schedule was prepared for the Battles translation, I will be reading through the Beveridge translation for two reasons: (1) I already read through the Battles translation in 2009 and (2) I got the Beveridge translation on my tablet so I can go "paperless." The Beveridge translation can also be found free on reformed.org here.

Finally, for those of you that don't have the time or desire to read this book now, I will be posting, or "tweeting" a prayer based on each of the sections of the Institutes each weekday. It may be a summary prayer of the section, or it may be something that the Holy Spirit used to quicken my soul. 

If you would like to follow these prayers, I will be using the hashtag: #Calvin2012. You can also view the most recent prayers on the main page of this blog.

Finally - my hope is that this journey will bring us all to a better knowledge and worship of our Redeemer and Lord, Jesus.

 

"Now let us cast ourselves down before the majesty of our good God with acknowledgement of our faults, so that we, finding that there is nothing in us but a bottomless pit of all kinds of iniquity, may learn to resort to his righteousness, and to seek it at the source." - Calvin, Sermons on Ephesians