Sárospataki Füzetek 14. (2010)

2010 / 1. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Sell, Alan P. F.: Milyen megoldásra váró feladatok elé állítja Kálvin a 21. századi egyházat?

Calvin’s challenges to the twenty-first-century church

sion and discipline.73 It is equally clear that for Calvin judgment, albeit by the Word not the pastor, no less than consolation were ingredients in genuine pastoral care. Thus he says that the minds of the weak must not be crushed by ‘excessive severity’; that evil must not be encouraged by ‘smooth language’; and that those who boldly and obstinately resist must be ‘broken and crushed’ by the Word.74 Calvin’s teaching on the ‘third use’ of the law in of relevance here. To the believer the law of God is not longer simply a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ, or a rule for political order, but a guide for the Christian life. Hence, as John Hesselink puts it,

To the seeking soul who cries in anguish: How can I know the will of God? How

shall I respond to that God? Where can I find and true and certain guide in life?

Calvin answers: in the law, because in it we have a direct, unmistakable revelation

of God’s character and will for us.75

In a word, the law returns the regenerate to Christ, and by the Holy Spirit they are enabled to obey it.76

Negligent pastors who shun pastoral work earn a stern rebuke from Calvin. The negligence of those is inexcusable ‘who, having made one sermon, as if they had done their task, live for all the rest of their time idly, as if their voices were shut up within the church walls, seeing that so soon as they be departed thence, they be dumb.’77 Such behaviour was not merely an abnegation of pastoral responsibility, it was an affront to the discipline of the Genevan Church, for prior to each of the four celebrations per annum of the Lord's Supper all church members were to be visited in their homes by elders and pastors, particular concern being expressed for the young.

How does all of this challenge today’s Church? In the first place it reminds us that the call to ministry is a high and holy calling than which there is no higher. There is no adverse elitism in this; rather the call is to humility and submission to the Word, and to self-sacrificing service of those for whose souls one has a responsibility. This would seem to run counter to those managerial notions of ministry which prevail in some quarters today, and which facilitate the understanding of ministry as a job, as having a career pattern, as having specified terms of reference and hours of duty.

As to preaching: in Calvin’s view, and in mine, there is no higher privilege than to proclaim the Gospel of Christ. I do not say that preaching can only be undertaken from a pulpit, though I think there is something to be said for having, in the full liturgy, a particular place from which it is done, because this indicates the fact that something special is going on: this is precisely not an individual offloading his or her latest thoughts on this and that. This is where one stands who has been

73 See Institutes, III.iv.12.

74 See Commentary on Isaiah, 42: 3, trans. W. Pringle, 1852, 289.

751. John Hesselink, Calvin's Concept of the Caw, 33.

76 In addition to John Hesselink's ground-breaking study of the law in Calvin, see also Byung-Ho Moon, Christ the Mediator of the Caw. Calvin's Christo logical understanding of the Caw as the Rule ofCiving and dfe-giving, Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2006.

77 Commentary on Acts, 20: 20.

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