Elesha Coffman
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| museeprotestant.org |
It's a bit difficult to summarize the
Institutes content covered by chapter 1 of the Lane book, because Calvin was trying to do several things in his note to the reader, note on the "Subject Matter of the Present Work," and "Prefatory Address to King Francis I of France." A sentence summarizing the first two notes might say: Calvin's primary goal here is to give seminarians a theological framework for reading the Bible, but he also wants to make the whole church strong and pure. As for the prefatory address, the takeaway is, "Please, King, don't kill us Protestants, because, while we're departing pretty sharply from Roman Catholicism--which itself departed woefully from true, biblical Christianity--we're not dangerous fanatics like those Anabaptists at
Munster." Being trained as seminarians is definitely important and relevant for students in this class! Not being killed by the King of France is rather less relevant, but Calvin makes some very important points about his doctrine of the church here.
Turning to the questions from Lane, chapter 1 (p. 27): "How did Calvin see the
Institutes relating to Scripture and to his commentaries?" He really saw the
Institutes and commentaries as a dual resource, with each pointing to the other, and both pointing consistently back to Scripture. Calvin was convinced that everything Christians needed to know was in the Bible, but the Bible didn't interpret itself, so Calvin offered his assistance: "Perhaps the duty of those who have received from God fuller light than others is to help simple folk at this point, and as it were to lend them a hand, in order to guide them and help them to find the sum of what God meant to teach us in his Word" (Institutes, p. 6).
