Calvin’s Little Book on the Christian Life
One of the most tragic changes in our society is the insistence upon “new.” The modern man wants to steer clear of the ruts, yet ruts are only a problem if you are stuck in them. A young boy exploring in the woods will quickly tell you the benefits of those ol’ ruts and trails after his long period of lostness. Christians today need the wind of the ages to blow through their sails if they are ever to find their way to that heavenly home. One gust of such wind can be found in Calvin’s “Little Book.”
This tiny book may can fit in your purse or back pocket, but it is only a sliver from the larger tome known as The Institutes of the Christian Religion. The Institutes may have changed the world as we know it, but this tiny volume met a larger publication many years before the Institutes would become popular. Calvin summarizes his goal in writing as such:
THE GOAL OF God’s work in us is to bring our lives into harmony and agreement with His own righteousness, and so to manifest to ourselves and others our identity as His adopted children. We discover in God’s law a picture of God’s own image, to which we are being progressively conformed. But since we are lazy and require prodding and encouragement in this, it will be helpful to construct in this work a model of the mature Christian life from various passages of Scripture, so that those who are truly repentant of heart will not lose their way on the path to greater conformity to God’s image.
Here, Calvin recognized five key tenets of the Christian life: Scripture’s call to Christian living, self-denial in the Christian life, Bearing our cross as part of Christian living, meditation on the future life, and how to use present comforts and benefits. We can sum this down to five words - scripture, self-denial, suffering, hope, and life. Are these not questions which we find ourselves faced with today? Each of us question how to use the Bible, how to wrestle with sin and temptation, how to persevere and improve our suffering, how to cherish our future hope, and how to define boundaries for the many comforts and pleasures offered to an affluent society. Thoroughly scriptural, eminently pastoral, and simply practical, this tiny work should be given as a field guide for every Christian, both young and old.
