A Year with the Institutes, Day 1

Here we go: more Calvin, less blogger.

All quotations taken from John T. McNeil's translation of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.

"God has filled my mind with zeal to spread his kingdom and to further the public good." p. 4

The legacy of Christendom: the kingdom of God and the public good are one and the same. Yet here is the seed of an important element of a Reformed understanding of vocation, that the public is the field of its application, not strictly the church.

"I can at least promise that it [that is, The Institutes] can be a key to open a way for all children of God into a good and right understanding of Holy Scripture." p. 7

At the core, The Institutes are a Bible study tool.