While I am a big fan of John Calvin and his theology, his example as a pastor leaves some things to be desired. He was, in a word, crazy. The amount of work he undertook was far too much for one man and contributed to his early death at the age of 54. The following is a paraphrase from my church history notes from this semester, illustrating the amount of work Calvin assumed while working in Geneva.

It was Calvin’s normal practice to preach five times a week. He would preach twice on Sunday, and then Monday, Wednesday, and Friday throughout the course of his ministry in Geneva. He preached directly from the Greek and Hebrew, as per his academic character. On Sunday morning he would preach from the New Testament, Sunday afternoon from the Psalms, and throughout the week he would preach from the Old Testament. But Calvin didn’t just preach five times a week. He also typically gave three different theological lectures per week. On Thursdays, he would preside over the consistory of the church. On Friday evenings, he would lead a Bible study for pastors in the canton of Geneva, teaching them how to read and understand the text so that when Sunday came they could preach it more effectively. In addition, he had all the other pastoral duties to contend with as well. There are records from 1550-1559 that state that he performed two-hundred and seventy weddings and fifty baptisms. As a theologian, he wrote commentaries on almost every book of the Bible, authored many different theological treatises, as well as his famous Institutes of the Christian Religion, which he revised and expanded seven times until it got to be the size it is today. He translated the entire Institutes into French three different times. Also, in the archives in Geneva, there are eleven massive volumes filled with the myriad of letters that he wrote in his lifetime. Without rhetorical exaggeration, it can be said that Calvin pastored himself to death.

This kind of thing is why I am so supportive of the idea of associate pastors. Shepherding a flock, especially once they start to grow larger than a couple hundred, is far too much work for one man. Calvin should not serve as an example for pastors in how much work they should be doing.

However, Calvin as the preacher is another story, and much can be learned from his example, not in the quantity of material preached, but in the quality. Calvin stressed the need for a great deal of preparatory work. The unfortunate tendency amidst all the other work of a pastor is that this key aspect can be neglected. Calvin argued, however, that if you have the audacity to proclaim, “Thus saith the Lord,” you had better have done sufficient preparation. Further, he maintained that preaching must always be rooted in the text, lest your preaching become merely your own opinion. Ultimately, his goals in preaching were twofold. First, he maintained that the congregation must be edified by the preaching. If they were not, he simply stated that the preacher had not given an adequate sermon. Secondly, though, he believed that the preacher himself must be touched by the Word. A pastor who was not moved by the power and truth of the Word of God could not preach with conviction to the souls in the pew.

What I like most about what Calvin says about preaching is when he talks about the “hidden energy” at work in the preacher. Calvin once said, “It is certain that if we come to church, we shall not only hear a mortal man speaking, but we shall see that by a secret power, God is speaking through that man.” He believed that once he did his preparation and got up into the pulpit, the Spirit would send the Word forth from his mouth and into the hearts of those present.

Too often, I think we look at the man speaking to us, and divorce the words that he is speaking from the Word of God. We would do well to remember that the preacher is communicating to us not just words, but the Word. God uses them as his instruments to speak to us. When they surrender themselves and their words to God, that hidden energy of the Spirit can work in powerful ways. Calvin recognized this, and so should we. The Word of God is living and active, as the writer to the Hebrews says. Let us pray that the Spirit of God would penetrate our hearts with that Word.