A friend recently recommended I read Scott M. Manetsch’s book, Calvin’s Company of Pastors: Pastoral Care and the Emerging Reformed Church, 1536-1609. How grateful I am for the suggestion. It is a fascinating look into the spiritual life of Geneva during and after Calvin’s public ministry there. Here are a few thoughts from a portion of the book.
From the time of John Calvin’s coming to Geneva until the beginning of the seventeenth century, more than 130 pastors participated in what was referred to as Geneva’s Venerable Company of Pastors. These shepherds sought to oversee not only the ongoing work of the Reformation, but the practical shepherding of the churches in and around the city of Geneva. The following are quotes from the book that I have found interesting as to how these shepherds sought to oversee the flock of God among them. So much is the same, little has changed.
Regarding one of the final meetings John Calvin had with his colleagues in ministry:
. . . he exhorted his pastoral colleagues to be on guard against all religious innovation in the future. “I beg you also to change nothing and to avoid innovation,” Calvin stated, “not because I am ambitious to preserve my own work. . . but because all changes are dangerous, and sometimes even harmful.” 1
On establishing and maintaining right worship:
Calvin identified two principal qualities of authentic Christian worship: it is spiritual and it is dependent upon the divine Word. Worship is “spiritual” in that it originates in the ministry of the Holy Spirit who initiates faith in the Christian man or woman and then stimulates this faith to prayers and praise, purity of conscience, self-denial, and submission to God. For Calvin, the source of worship is the Holy Spirit, the locus of worship is the inward faith of the heart, and the purpose of Christian worship is to bring glory to God alone . . . . At its foundation, therefore, right and legitimate worship
Is to acknowledge God as he is, as the only source of virtue, justice, holiness, wisdom, truth, power, goodness, mercy, life and salvation, and so to ascribe and render to him the glory of all that is good, to seek all things in him alone, and to rely upon him in every need. From this arises prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, all of which testify to the glory we attribute to him. 34
The foundation on which Calvin and early reformed Christians constructed their aesthetic of worship is now evident. The sine qua non of true Christian worship is the preaching of the Word of God and the congregation’s heartfelt response to the divine message. Consequently, the chief adornment of public worship must always be the precious Word of God and the beautiful message of the gospel of Jesus Christ, proclaimed in both sermon and sacraments. Calvin’s insistence that the liturgical content and physical space of true worship be “bare and simple” was thus not primarily the result of his personal austerity or an aversion to the material world. Rather, it reflected his conviction that only through pure and simple worship might the beauty of the gospel shine forth resplendent. 36
On ordination to pastoral ministry:
While acknowledging that the custom of ordaining men to Christian ministry was an ancient practice, Calvin insisted that it did not meet the scriptural standard of a sacrament per se: the ceremony had never been instituted by Christ nor was it conjoined to a divine promise of grace. True ordination, he asserted, was “to call to the governing of the church a man of proved life and teaching, and to appoint him to that ministry. 72
On pastors and material possessions
Other than his books, Calvin owned little by way of physical possessions. Thus, Geneva’s magistrates took it on themselves to outfit the parsonage with necessary furnishings, including three beds, a wash basin, several tables and benches, three trunks, and a dozen stools. Calvin was sensitive to the accusation that he or any of Geneva’s ministers were getting rich on the city’s payroll; the modesty of his household served as proof that this was not the case: ‘Everyone knows how simple things are in my home,’ he once wrote. ‘They can see that I spend no money on nice clothes, and it is further well known that my brother is not rich, and that what he does have he did not receive from me.’ 114
On pastors living close to their church:
Competent pastoral care required that ministers live in close proximity to their people. 117
On pastoral life and responsibilities:
The pastoral vocation in late sixteenth-century Geneva was not at all an ivory-tower affair. Geneva’s pastors were called to a lifetime of study, godly conversation, Christian proclamation, meditation, and prayer. But this God-intoxicated manner of life needed to be expressed within, and accommodated to, an everyday world full of leaky roofs, rising prices, critical neighbors, misbehaving children, sick spouses, and modest wages. Goulart’s life philosophy – summarized in the maxim “only eternal things endure” – was not a call for otherworldy asceticism but served as a sober reminder that the eternal and the mundane were never very far apart. God’s work needed to be accomplished in the Christian household as well as in the Christian church. God’s will was to be done on earth as well as in heaven. 122
Next time – I will list a few quotes on the role and practice of preaching in Geneva.
