Coffee with Calvin

Coffee with Calvin

Coffee with Calvin is a book by Donald McKim in which he takes quotes from John Calvin and applies them to short devotionals. Donald has many books on Reformed Theology and the Presbyterian way. Some of you may recognize his name because he often writes for the daily devotional magazine These Days. As I read through the devotions I thought it might be fun to share some of them with you as well. Here is the first one. The numerical notations are from the coding system in Calvin’s book The Church Institutes.

Just as old or bleary eyed men and those with weak vision, if you thrust before them a most beautiful volume, even if they recognize it to be some sort of writing, yet can scarcely construe two words, but with the aid of spectacles will begin to read distinctly; so Scripture, gathering up the otherwise confused knowledge of God in our minds, having dispersed our dullness, clearly show us the true God. (1.6.1)

The Bible is a pair of eyeglasses, spectacles to snap into clarity the “confused knowledge of God in our minds.” We may not think of the Bible with this image, but it is an important one. Calvin believed that humans are born with an innate knowledge of God. We know intuitively within ourselves that there is a God who exists and stands behind all things, including us ourselves (1.3-4)

But this knowledge of God is not something we gravitate toward and love. The Scriptures teach that we reject this knowledge of God, rebel against it. Instead of helping us know God, this knowledge of God leads to our being inexcusable in God’s sight (1.4-5;Rom.1) We deserve God’s judgement for rejecting our Creator in our lives. This is the power of sin. Sin destroys our ability to know God through nature or the things around us. But God has given us the Bible to show us who God is and what God does. The Bible enables us to see the creation around us as the work of God. So to come to know God truly, we need “another and better help” (1.6.1)

The Bible is the spectacle that gives us the “pure and clear knowledge of God” that we cannot gain from any other place (1.5.15). The Bible “clearly show us the true God,” for in Scripture

God “opens his own most hallowed lips” (1.6.1)

Peace, Josie