Calvin's Company of Pastors

On Monday I was at the Pastors Academy once again. Rather busy there as the Lloyd-Jones Library is being refurbished following a flood and the ThM  students were there for a module so the reading group ended up in the chapel. Seven of us, led by Brad Franklin, discussed Scott Manetsch's Calvin and the company of pastors. The book is absolutely brilliant and well worth getting hold of. See here. It is well written and yet scholarly with a large chunk of endnotes. It teaches you more about Calvin, which we need to know but going from 1536-1609 it partly fills in that haziness that takes us from Calvin to the Puritans. It scotches the Calvin and the Calvinist idea and is also full of nice anecdotes, which always helps. (eg Claude Griffat suspended for calling his dog Calvin; Calvin seizing a man who had pocketed communion bread during the Lord's supper, Jean Saddo who gave his minister his cow;s eyeball for soem reason, etc). It is very useful for thinking through pastoral work too. Geneva was sadly wedded to the church state ideas of the past but if you can see beyond that there is a lot to learn. Next time we plan to look at Archibald Alexander's Thoughts on religious experience, January 21, 2019.

Day Off Week 42

My day off this week fell on a Friday as I was busy all day Tuesday at a committee and began with me putting on my old blue jeans, which helps set the mood. My main thing was to read a large chunk of Scott Manesch's Calvin's company of pastors for the Pastors' Academy reading group. I could do this any day but I was happy to do it on my day off as it is such an enjoyable book, full of brilliant anecdotes and so very well written. I also had to fit in a pastoral visit and complete my editorial work on the next In Writing magazine - again not ideal but you have to work around things sometimes. here was also dog walking, some lounging in front of the TV with Eleri and a nice chicken tikka masala take away style from Sainsbury's.