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John Calvin: A Life Worth Knowing · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome back to Reform Thinking. It is Saturday, February 14th,
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2026, and if you were checking your calendar, you know that
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means the rest of the world is probably a bit preoccupied right
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now with, you know, chocolates, red roses, dinner reservations.
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All that stuff, yeah. But we are doing something a
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little different. We are two Protestant Christians
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holding to the Westminster Confession, and we're taking a
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hard look at history through the lens of God's sovereignty.
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And today we are going to look at a man whose heart was offered
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to God promptly and sincerely, but who well, probably wouldn't
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have been much fun on a Valentine's Day.
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That is a very safe assumption. He was not exactly known for his
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small talk or romantic gestures, at least not in the way we think
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of them. We're talking about the
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theologian of the Holy Spirit, the architect of the Reformation
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in Geneva. We are talking about John
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Calvin. Now I have to be honest right
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out of the gate here, when you say the name John Calvin to, you
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know, the average person on this creed or even the average
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Christian in the you, you get a very specific reaction and it is
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usually not a warm and fuzzy feeling.
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No, it is not. The caricature is.
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It's very strong. They picture a guy in a Black
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Hat looking like he just sucked on a lemon, a joyless tyrant, a
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man who invented a theology just to make people feel bad about
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themselves. Or they see him as this.
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This cold, unfeeling intellectual who ruled Geneva
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like some kind of dictator, punishing people for smiling.
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He was born in 15 O 9. I mean that is over half
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Millennium ago. It feels like he is from a
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different planet, let alone a different time.
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The gap is just massive. Culturally, the early 1500s have
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way more in common with the Middle Ages than they do with
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our digital age. It's a completely different
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world. It is.
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But the goal of our discussion today really is to shatter that
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caricature. We want to find the human being
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underneath the Black Hat. We want to uncover the shy,
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reluctant scholar who really, truly just wanted to be left
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alone with his books, but who was used by Providence to
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completely overhaul Western society, church, government and
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education. OK.
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You just said he restructured Western society.
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Yeah, that is a massive claim. I mean most of our listeners,
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they know the theology, they know the acronym T Uluppi, they
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know about predestination, they know the term Calvinism.
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But you are suggesting his footprint goes way beyond church
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doctrine. It absolutely does.
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And this is where we need to, you know, wake people up to the
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reality of history. If you look at the serious
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historians, men like George Bancroft or the great German
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historian Leopold von Ranka, they don't just credit Calvin
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with being a good theologian. No, they credit him as being the
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virtual founder of America. OK, stop there.
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The founder of America. That sounds like we're engaging
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in some pretty serious historical revisionism.
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You were telling me a French lawyer living in Switzerland in
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the 1500s is responsible for the United States.
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It sounds wild until you actually connect the dots.
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Bancroft argued that the fanatic for Calvinism was a fanatic for
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liberty. I mean, just think about the
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lineage you have Geneva. The ideas from Geneva go to
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Scotland with John Knox. They go to England with the
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Puritans. Those Puritans then cross the
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Atlantic to Massachusetts. You have the Huguenots going to
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South Carolina, the Dutch Calvinists in Manhattan.
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It's an intellectual migration. It's an intellectual and
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spiritual migration, the concept of republican liberty, the whole
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idea that you need checks and balances because no single man
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can be trusted with absolute authority.
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That comes directly from Calvin's reading of the Bible.
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If you ignore Calvin, you really cannot understand where American
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liberty came from. So if we like the idea that the
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president is not a king, we might have to thank the guy in
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the Black Hat. Precisely.
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All right, I am intrigued. Let's unpack this.
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We need to figure out how a guy who basically wanted to be a
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librarian ended up shaping the modern world.
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Let's go back to the very beginning, set the stage for us.
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It is the early 16th century. What does the world look like?
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Well, it's a mess. Europe isn't the map of clean
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borders we see today, not at all.
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It is more like a quilt of tribes and family, alliances and
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fiefdoms. You've got the Holy Roman
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Empire, which, as they say, was neither holy nor Roman nor an
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empire. You have France, But the one
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thing holding it all together, the glue of the West, is the
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Roman Catholic Church. The Pope is the ultimate
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authority. But the ground is shaking.
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The tectonic plates are shifting.
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You have the Renaissance. You have the discovery of the
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New World. You have the printing press.
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We are standing right on the edge of the modern world.
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And right in the middle of all this chaos, Jean Covin is born.
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July 10th, 15 O 9. In Noyon, France, it is a
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cathedral town in Piccardi, about 60 miles northeast of
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Paris. A very old, very ecclesiastical
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town. We hear a lot about his father
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Gerard, but do we know anything about his mother?
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Very, very little, sadly. Her name was Jean La France.
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By all accounts, she was a beautiful, pious woman, but she
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died when Calvin was only five years old.
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Five. Wow, that is incredibly young.
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It is devastating, and you have to wonder how that shaped him.
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He doesn't write about it explicitly, of course, but
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losing your mother at 5, it leaves a mark.
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It creates a certain solitude, I think for sure.
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But his father, Gerard, he was the dominant force.
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Gerard was a notary and administrative assistant in the
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cathedral complex. He was a man who knew how the
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system worked and he had ambition for his sons.
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He had a specific road map for John.
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Right. Oh, he did.
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There were five kids, three sons, two daughters.
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Calvin was the middle son. And Gerard looked at this boy
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who was, you know, bright, sharp, maybe a little intense.
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And he decided this one is going to be a priest.
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It makes sense. I mean, if you work for the
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church and you want your kid to have job security, you put him
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in the church. It was a path to stability, the
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best career path available. So in 1521 Gerard pulls some
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strings and gets the 12 year old Calvin a benefice, which is
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basically a church salary to pay for his education, and he sends
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him off to Paris. Paris in the 1520s.
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I mean, paint that picture for us.
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This isn't the romantic Paris of the 1920s with Hemingway and
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Fitzgerald. Not at all, no.
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It was crowded, it was dirty, and it was the intellectual
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center of the universe. Calvin ends up at the college to
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Montague, and you need to understand what this place was
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like. It was legendary for how awful
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it was. Erasmus studied there a
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generation earlier and he just, he hated it.
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He complained about the rotten eggs, the freezing cold dorms,
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the incredibly harsh discipline sounds.
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Miserable. It was ascetic to the extreme.
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They were trying to, you know, beat the sin out of you while at
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the same time filling your head with logic.
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But this is where Calvin's mind was sharpened.
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This is the Forge. It was a forge.
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Exactly. He studied logic, rhetoric, the
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arts. He was influenced by man like
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John Major, a Scottish theologian.
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This is where Calvin learned how to think.
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He didn't just memorize facts. He learned how to deconstruct an
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argument, how to analyze a text, how to spot a logical fallacy
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from a mile away. And you can see that in his
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writing. Oh, absolutely.
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If you read the Institutes today, you see that legal,
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logical precision that was forged in the cold dorms of
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Montague. So he is on the fast track to
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the priesthood. He is brilliant.
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He is rising in the ranks. And then the plan changes.
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His dad pulls the emergency brake.
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Gerard changed his mind and it wasn't because of some, you
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know, spiritual awakening. It was about money.
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Of course, Gerard got into a dispute with the cathedral
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chapter in Noyon. He was actually excommunicated
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later over financial issues and he decided that the church
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wasn't the best place for his son anymore.
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He looked at the legal profession and saw dollar signs.
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Simple as that. Simple as that.
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He told Calvin to drop theology and study law.
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I just love the humanity of that decision.
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It is so pragmatic. Son.
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The priest gig is OK, but lawyers get paid.
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Exactly. But if we look at this through
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the lens of Providence, that decision is it's.
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It is the hinge of history. If Calvin stays in theology,
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maybe he becomes a Bishop. Maybe he writes some interesting
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Catholic Reform tracks. But he never becomes Calvin.
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By sending him to law school, first in Orleans, then in
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Borgia, God was equipping him with the specific toolkit he
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would need later on. How so?
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Would the law give him that theology wouldn't have?
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Because the Reformation in Geneva wasn't just about
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preaching sermons. It was about building a new
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society. It was about writing a
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constitution. It was about legislation.
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Right, the practical stuff. The practical stuff.
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Calvin's legal training taught him how to structure a
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government, how to write laws, how to think about civil
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jurisdiction. He was a legislator as much as
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he was a pastor. He could not have done what he
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did in Geneva without those years in law school.
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It's just so ironic. The Father acts out of greed,
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and God uses it to build the framework for a reformed
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Republic. God rarely draws with straight
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lines, so. He is studying law, but he is
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also getting sucked into this world of humanism.
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We need to define that because today if I say I am a humanist,
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people think I'm an atheist. Right.
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It means something totally different now.
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In the 16th century, humanism wasn't about putting man above
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God, it was a literary movement. The slogan was Adfontis, which
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means to the sources. Back to the originals.
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Exactly. The humanists were tired of the
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medieval scholastic clutter. They wanted to go back to the
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original texts, the original Latin of Cicero, the original
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Greek of the philosophers, and eventually the original Greek
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and Hebrew of the Bible. And Calvin was good at this.
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He was a prodigy, He learned Greek, he learned Hebrew.
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He was just swimming in the deep end of classical scholarship.
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In fact, his first published book had nothing to do with the
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Bible. What was it?
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It was a commentary on Senecas de Clementia.
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Published in 1532. And even in this this Pagan
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commentary, you see sparks of his future politics.
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You do. It's fascinating.
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He analyzes Seneca's advice to the Emperor Nero, and Calvin
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argues that there is a moral law that is above the king.
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He writes that the Prince is not above the laws, but the laws
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above the Prince. That is a dangerous thing to say
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in France in 1532. I mean, Francis the 1st is the
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king. He is an absolute monarch.
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He is the state. It was a radical idea.
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France was a monarchy where the King's word was law.
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And here's this young scholar already toying with the idea
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that there is a standard that even the king has to bow to.
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It is the seed of constitutionalism.
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So we have this brilliant young lawyer.
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He is a humanist scholar. He is publishing commentaries on
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Roman philosophers. He looks set for a nice,
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comfortable life in the ivory tower.
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But then. The crash and everything
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changes. This brings us to Part 2,
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Conversion and the Reluctant Leader.
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This is where the mystery comes in.
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Calvin is incredibly private. I mean, Luther will tell you
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about his bowel movements and his spiritual angst in graphic
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detail. Calvin, just silence.
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We have almost no diary entries. The only real account of his
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conversion comes from the preface to his commentary on the
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Psalms, which he wrote in 1557. We're talking decades later.
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And even that is brief. It is maddeningly brief.
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He says he was obstinately addicted to the superstitions of
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the papacy. He was hard to move.
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But then he says, God subdued and brought my mind to a
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teachable frame. Teachable frame.
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I like that phrase. He calls it a sudden conversion.
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We don't know the day or the hour, but sometime around 1533
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or 1534, the switch flipped. He realized that the church had
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drifted from the Scriptures and he just he could not stay, he
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says. He was inflamed with an intense
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desire to pursue true godliness. And typically for Calvin, he
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didn't want to make a big scene. He just wanted to learn.
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That's it, he writes. My 1 great object was to live in
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seclusion without being known. He wanted to find a quiet
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corner, stack up his books and just read.
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But he says God so led me about. He never permitted me to rest in
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any place. And he certainly didn't get any
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rest in Paris. The atmosphere there was turning
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toxic. Tell us about the cop affair,
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because this feels like a scene from a spy movie.
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It really is. It is late 1533.
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Nicholas Cop is a friend of Calvin's and he is the newly
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elected rector of the University of Paris.
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He has to give an inaugural of this.
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Traditionally this would be a, you know, a boring speech in
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Latin praising the faculty, but cop and many people think Calvin
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wrote the speech for him, gets up and delivers a barn burner.
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He preaches justification by faith.
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He talks about the need for reform.
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He quotes Erasmus and Luther in. The heart of Catholic Paris.
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It was explosive. The King, Francis the First, was
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furious. He saw it as sedition.
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He ordered the arrest of the Lutheran's cop, fled
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immediately, and then the police came for Calvin.
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This is where the legend gets specific, isn't it?
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It is, the story goes, that while the officers were banging
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on the front door of his lodgings, Calvin was tying his
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bedsheets together to climb out the window at the back.
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You're kidding. He escaped through the window
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dressed as a vine dresser, a gardener with a hole on his
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shoulder. He slipped out of Paris in
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disguise. The great theologian
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masquerading as a gardener, running for his life.
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It shows you the danger. This wasn't a game.
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People were being burned. This is the era where the
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placards incident happens, where Protestants put up posters
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attacking the mass and the king responds by burning heretics at
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the stake. Calvin saw his friends die.
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That has to change a man. It is one thing to debate
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theology in a classroom. It is another to smell the smoke
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of your friends burning. It solidified his hatred of
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tyranny. He saw the state acting as a
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beast, devouring its own citizens for their conscience.
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It wasn't abstract for him anymore.
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It was personal. So he is on the run.
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He is using aliases, Charles Despiel, Marchianas Lucanius.
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He is moving from city to city, trying to find a safe haven.
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He wants to go to Strasbourg is his free city.
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It is German speaking. It is safe.
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But he can't get there. There is a war going on between
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Francis the 1st and the Emperor Charles the 5th.
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The direct Rd. is blocked by troop movements, so he has to
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take a detour. He looks at the map and decides
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to head South, loop around and spend one night in Geneva.
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One night, that's all. He has no intention of staying.
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He just needs a bed. He checks into an inn.
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He thinks he is anonymous, but Geneva is a small town and the
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Reformation is already bubbling there.
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The leader of the movement in Geneva is a man named William
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Ferrell. Let's talk about Ferrell for a
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second, Because if Calvin is ice, Farrell is fire.
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That's a great way to put it. Farrell was a redhead.
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Fiery, loud, explosive. He was a street preacher.
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He had been leading the charge in Geneva, smashing statues,
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shouting down priests. But he was a destroyer, not a
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builder. He knew he needed someone with a
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mind to organize the chaos. And someone tells him, hey, the
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guy who wrote the Institutes is at the inn.
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Farrell runs to the inn. He barges into the room.
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He looks at this young, skinny scholar.
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Calvin is only 27 at this point and he says you are staying, we
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need you. And Calvin, being Calvin, says
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no thanks. Calvin lists all his excuses.
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I am shy. I am constitutionally weak.
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I need quiet to study. I am not a man of action.
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I can help the movement better by writing books in a quiet
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room. All valid points from his
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perspective. But Farrell doesn't accept that.
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Not for a. Second, Farrell stands up and
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you can just imagine the vein popping in his forehead and he
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thunders at him. He says.
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May God curse your studies if now, in her time of need, you
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refuse to lend your aid to His Church.
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May God curse your studies. I mean, that is a heavy thing to
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say to a man who has dedicated his entire life to God.
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It terrified Calvin, he later wrote.
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I felt as if God had from heaven laid his mighty hand upon me to
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arrest me. He was physically shaken.
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He couldn't leave. He felt that if he walked out
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that door, he was walking away from God's will.
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So against every natural instinct, he stayed the
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reluctant leader. He didn't campaign for the job.
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He was drafted at gunpoint, basically.
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Territorial gunpoint, yes. But it wasn't a fairy tale
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ending, was it? This brings us to part three.
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The first stay in Geneva was a disaster.
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A total failure, an absolute mess.
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He stayed from 1536 to 1538. Geneva was a Wild West town.
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They had just thrown out the Duke of Savoy and the Bishop.
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They wanted political freedom, but they weren't necessarily
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looking for moral holiness, right?
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Factions were fighting in the streets.
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People were gambling, drinking, brawling.
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And Calvin and Farrell tried to clean it up too fast.
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They did. They tried to impose moral
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discipline on a city that just wasn't ready for it.
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And it all came to a head over the Lord's Supper.
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The city was in such a state of rebellion and an open sin that
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Calvin and Farrell felt they could not in good conscience
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give communion to the populace. They felt it would be mocking
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the body of Christ. So on Easter Sunday 1538, they
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refused to administer the sacraments.
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They went on a communion strike. Essentially, yes, they preached,
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but they withheld the bread and wine.
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The City Council was furious. They saw the preachers as
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employees of the state and employees do what they are told.
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I see. So within days, the council
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voted to banish them. They were kicked out of the
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city. And honestly, looking at
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Calvin's personality, he must have been thrilled.
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Oh, he was relieved. He basically said good riddance.
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He thought finally I can go to Strasbourg and study like I
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wanted to in the 1st place. And that is exactly what he did.
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He goes to Strasbourg, he spends 3 years there from 1538 to 1541
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and by all accounts these were the happiest years of his life.
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They were his golden years, without a doubt.
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He was mentored by Martin Booser, who was a real father
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figure to him. Booster taught him how to be a
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pastor, not just a theologian. Calvin pastored a Church of
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French refugees, about 500 people.
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He got to preach, he got to teach in Johann Sturm's Academy,
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and he didn't have the weight of running a whole city on his
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shoulders. And this is where he fell in
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love. Or at least this is where he got
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married. Well, his friends were trying to
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set him up. It's actually quite funny,
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Calvin wrote a letter listing his requirements for a wife, he
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said. I am not one of those insane
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lovers who embrace even the vices of those they are in love
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with. Sounds romantic.
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It does. He wanted a woman who is chaste,
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obliging, not fastidious, economical, patient and careful
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for my health. He wanted a nurse and a
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housekeeper. It sounds drive, but then he
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meant Eilette. Eilette de Beore.
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She was a widow. She had been an Anabaptist
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converted to the Reformed faith. She had two children.
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She wasn't wealthy. She wasn't a young beauty queen,
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but she was exactly what he needed.
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They married in 1540. And this is where we see the
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soft heart of Calvin. We do.
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We see a man who deeply, deeply loved his wife.
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They were only married for nine years, idle that had chronic
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health issues. They had a son together,
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Jacques, who was born prematurely and died after just
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two weeks. That's just heartbreaking.
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It shattered them, Calvin wrote to a friend.
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The Lord has certainly inflicted a severe and bitter wound in the
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death of our baby son, but He is himself a father and knows best
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what is good for his children and.
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Then Ida let herself died in 1549.
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And Calvin's grief was raw. This is the part the character
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completely misses. He wrote to Verret, his friend.
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I have been bereaved of the best companion of my life, of one
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who, had it been so ordered, would not only have been the
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willing share of my exile and poverty, but even of my death.
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He said he could barely keep going.
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He raised her children as his own.
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He never remarried. He carried that love and that
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loss for the rest of his life. He wasn't a robot, he was a man
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who knew what it was to weep next to a grave.
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Absolutely. His theology of suffering was
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not academic. It was forged in the cemetery.
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So he is in Strasbourg, he is happy, he is healing.
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But back in Geneva, things are going off the rails again.
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Geneva was collapsing. Without the moral center that
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Calvin and Ferrell provided, the city just fell into chaos.
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The Catholics were trying to win the city back.
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The council realized they had made a huge mistake.
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They needed the Frenchman back. So they send a delegation to beg
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him to return. And Calvin's reaction is it's
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visceral. He was horrified, he wrote.
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There is no place under heaven I am more afraid of than Geneva.
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He compared returning to being strapped to a rack torture
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device. He said he would rather die 1000
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deaths then go back to that cross.
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But he went Why? Duty.
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He believed that his life was not his own.
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He wrote to the council, Ioffer my heart promptly and sincerely.
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That became his motto. He believed God was calling him
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back and he could not say no to God, even if it meant misery for
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himself. So he rides back into Geneva in
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1541. This is Part 4, The return.
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And this moment in the pulpit is one of the greatest moments in
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church history. It is so cinematic.
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I mean, picture the scene. The cathedral Saint Pierre is
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packed. The people are nervous.
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They expect him to tear them apart.
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They expect a sermon on why you were wrong to kick me out.
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They expect anger. He is the perfect opportunity
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for an I told you so moment. It's a perfect opportunity.
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He walks up the steps to the high pulpit.
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The silence is deafening. He opens the Bible and he begins
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to preach on the very next verse following the one he had ended
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with three years ago. That is unbelievable.
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He just picked up exactly where he left off.
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As if nothing had happened, As if the three-year exile was just
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a pause for a breath. It was a masterstroke.
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He was saying, I am not here to talk about myself.
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I am not here to talk about politics.
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I am here to preach the word of God.
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The Word continues. It established his authority
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instantly. So he is back, and this time he
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is going to build the godly society.
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But we need to clear up a misconception.
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People called Geneva a theocracy.
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They think Calvin was the Ayatollah of Geneva.
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That is just historically lazy. It wasn't a theocracy in the
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sense that the church ran the state.
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In fact, Calvin spent his entire career fighting to keep the
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state out of the church. Explain that.
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That seems counterintuitive. He drafted the Ecclesiastical
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Ordinances in 1541. The core battle of his whole
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ministry was over the consistory, the church court.
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Calvin insisted that the church, and only the church had the
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right to excommunicate sinners. And the City Council didn't like
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that. The City Council wanted that
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power. They wanted to decide who took
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communion, Calvin said. No, that is a spiritual matter.
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The state holds the sword. The church holds the keys.
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So it was actually a separation of powers.
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It was. He was trying to create distinct
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spheres of jurisdiction. Now, did they overlap?
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Of course. Did the state enforce moral
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laws? Yes.
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But Calvin never held civil office.
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He couldn't even vote for most of his time there.
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He was a resident alien. His power was purely moral.
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He ruled by the pulpit, not by the sword.
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But he did care about civil laws, and not just the big ones.
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He cared about guardrails. This is where you see his
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incredible attention to detail. He helped draft the Civil Code.
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He insisted on laws requiring guardrails on balconies so
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children wouldn't fall off. He pushed for sanitation laws to
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clean up the sewage in the streets.
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He helped organize the hospitals.
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Why does the theologian care about sewage?
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Because the body matters. Because loving your neighbor
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means making sure they don't get cholera.
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Because the world is God's theater and it should be clean
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and orderly. It was a holistic worldview.
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Let's talk about the workload, because when you read his
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schedule, it just makes me want to take a nap.
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It is exhausting just to think about.
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He preached twice every Sunday and then on alternating weeks he
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preached every single day at noon.
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Every day. Every day.
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That is roughly 20 sermons a month.
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And he was writing at the same time.
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He wrote commentaries on almost every book of the Bible.
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He wrote thousands of letters. He wrote theological treatises.
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He sat in the consistory meetings every Thursday, which
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were long and contentious. How did he physically survive?
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He barely did. He suffered from migraines,
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kidney stones, hemorrhoids, gout, tuberculosis.
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He was constantly in pain. But he just kept working.
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He had a team of secretaries. Eventually, in 1549, they hired
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a man named Dennis Raganier to take shorthand notes of his
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sermons. So that's why we have.
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Them. That is why we have them.
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He would walk into the pulpit with no notes, just the Hebrew
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or Greek text, and preach for an hour, translating and expositing
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on the fly and. People flocked to hear him.
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Geneva became a destination. Refugees poured in, and even the
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people who hated him came to listen.
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The records show that his enemies, the Libertines, would
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sit in the back. They hated his morality, but
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they couldn't deny the power of the message.
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It was the mass media of the 16th century.
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This brings us to Part 5, the Academy and the press.
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Calvin knew he wasn't going to live forever.
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He needed a way to export the revolution.
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He needed a cloning machine. He needed to create more
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pastors, more thinkers. So in 1558 he founded the
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Genevan Academy. This is the Harvard of the
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Reformation. It really was.
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He modeled it on Sturm School back in Strasbourg.
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It started small, but it just exploded.
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By the time he died, there were 1200 students in the college and
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300 in the seminary. And these weren't just local
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kids from Geneva. No, no, they were international.
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They came from France, England, Scotland, Italy, Poland.
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John Knox came there and called it the most perfect school of
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Christ that ever was in the earth since the days of the
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Apostles. As high trays and the curriculum
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was tough. Brutal Latin, Greek, Hebrew
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philosophy. Calvin didn't want ignorant
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preachers. He wanted men who could read the
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text in the original languages, who could debate the Jesuits,
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who could think clearly. He believed that piety and
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intellect had to go hand in hand.
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And then he sent them back. That is the key.
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It was a missionary hub. They trained for a few years and
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then they were sent back into the danger zones.
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Over 100 missionaries were sent into France alone.
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They knew they were likely going to their deaths.
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And they took books with them. Geneva became a printing
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factory. The printing press was the
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weapon of choice. Robert Estien, the great
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printer, moved his whole operation to Geneva.
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They churned out Bibles, commentaries, tracts.
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In 1561 alone, they published 48 books.
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How do they get them into France?
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I mean, Protestant Bibles were illegal there.
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They were smugglers. They hid books in the false
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bottoms of wine barrels. They packed them in crates of
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other goods. Peddlers would carry them in
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backpacks across the Alps. It was a massive underground
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network. You could burn the books, but
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you couldn't stop the ideas. The ideas were contagious, and
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because they were printed in French, not just Latin, the
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common people could read them. It democratized theology.
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Let's shift gears a bit to Part 6, Friendships.
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We have talked about the work, but was he just a lonely
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workaholic? That is the myth.
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But the reality is that Calvin was a man of deep, abiding
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friendship. He had a circle.
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Theodore Biza, William Ferrell, Peter Verret.
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They called the trio of Calvin Ferrell and Verret the Tripod.
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I love that the tripod. They were inseparable in spirit.
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They wrote constantly when they were together.
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They laughed. There are accounts of Calvin
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playing quits a game, sort of like horseshoes with his
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friends. He enjoyed dinner parties.
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He was not a sour puss. There is a story about when Biza
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got sick, right? Yes, Biza contracted the plague
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I believe, or at least a very severe fever.
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Calvin was beside himself. He wrote that if Biza died, he
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wouldn't know how to function. He wept for his friends.
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He was a man of high emotion. He just channelled it into his
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work most of the time. And he wrote thousands of
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letters. To everyone.
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He wrote to the kings of Europe, lecturing them on theology.
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But he also wrote to women who are being persecuted.
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He wrote to widows. He took time for the little
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people. He was a pastor at heart.
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OK, Part 7, seven, We need to circle back to that founder of
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America claim. We talked about his legal
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background. How does his theology translate
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to the US Constitution? It starts with the doctrine of
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total depravity. Which sounds like a real downer.
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It sounds bleak, but it is politically practical.
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Calvin believed that every human being and every part of their
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being is tainted by sin. No one is righteous.
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No, not one. That includes kings, hopes and
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presidents. So if everyone is sinful, you
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can't trust anyone with too much power.
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Bingo. If men were angels, we wouldn't
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need government. If angels governed men, we
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wouldn't need controls on government.
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But because men are wolves, you cannot give one wolf all the
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power. You have to split it up.
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You need checks and balances. So he advocated for a mixed
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government. He liked the idea of an
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aristocracy, not an aristocracy of blood, but of merit combined
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with democracy. He wanted collegial government.
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In Geneva you had the Little Council, the Council of 200, the
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consistory power. He was distributed.
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And that idea traveled to America.
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It traveled via the Puritans. They set up town halls in New
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England. They believe that magistrates
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should be elected and that they should be held accountable, and
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then you have the right of resistance.
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This is crucial. This is maybe the most crucial
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part. Calvin taught that while private
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citizens shouldn't just start a revolution, the lesser
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magistrates, the lower officials, have a duty to
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protect the people from a tyrant.
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If the king breaks God's law, the lower magistrates can stand
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up and say no. That is the script for the
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American Revolution, the Continental Congress.
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Which were the lesser magistrates saying no to King
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George? It is the exact theological
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justification used by many of the founders.
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They weren't anarchists. They were following the
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Calvinist doctrine of resistance to tyranny.
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But for Calvin himself, the goal wasn't political power.
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It was humility. He kept coming back to Augustine
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on this humility, humility and humility.
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He believed that the only way to know God was to realize how
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small you are. He was terrified of pride.
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He saw pride as the root of all heresy.
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And that brings us to the end, Part 8.
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The end of the Reformer is 1564. Calvin is only 54 years old, but
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he looks 80. He is a wreck.
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He's spitting blood. He can barely walk.
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He has to be carried to the pulpit in a chair for his final
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sermons. He knows the end is.
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Near and he calls people to his bedside.
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He summons the magistrates, the politicians, and he gives them
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one last lecture. He warns them against ambition.
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He tells them I am a miserable creature.
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I have had many faults, but I have tried to be faithful.
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He apologizes to them. He asks forgiveness for his
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flashes of anger. He knew he had a temper.
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He didn't claim to be perfect. He just claimed to be a servant
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of the word. And then he talks to the
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ministers. He gathers the pastors of
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Geneva. He recounts the early days, the
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mobs, the rifles fired at his door.
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He tells them to stick together. He points to Beza and says
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follow him. He hands over the baton.
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He died on May 27th, 1564 and the details of his burial are
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just. He left very specific
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instructions. He wanted to be buried in the
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common cemetery, Plen Palais, and, he insisted, no tombstone.
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No marker at all? No.
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Here lies the great reformer. Nothing.
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He wanted to be anonymous in death.
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He knew the human heart is an idol factory.
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He didn't want Geneva to become a shrine to Calvin.
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He didn't want pilgrims coming to worship his bones or his
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memory. He wanted the focus to be soli
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de O Gloria, to God alone be the glory.
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He wanted to disappear so that Christ would be visible.
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It is a profound statement. In an era where everyone wanted
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a monument, he wanted a patch of grass.
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And to this day, we don't know exactly where he is buried.
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There is a small stone there now that marks a possible spot, but
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nobody knows for sure. And that is exactly how he
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wanted it. So we have travels from the
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filth of Paris to the pulpit of Geneva.
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We've seen the reluctant leader, the grieving husband, the
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friend, the architect of liberty.
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We have seen a man who was far more complex, far more human
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than the caricature. He wasn't a joyless tyrant.
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He was a man consumed by the glory of God.
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It is February 14th, 2026. We are looking back 500 years as
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we wrap this all up. What is the take away?
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Why does this matter to the guy driving his car right now?
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I think the challenge for us is this.
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We live in the age of the self. We are obsessed with our brand,
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our platform, our legacy. We want to be known.
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Kelvin offers a countercultural critique.
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He suggests that the most effective life is the one that
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is given away. He suggests that you can change
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the world not by seeking power, but by seeking truth.
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And maybe the most powerful way to leave a legacy is to not care
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if anyone remembers your name. Precisely.
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The man with the unmarked grave shaped the world more than the
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kings with the pyramids. That is something to think
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about. Thank you for diving deep with
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us. This has been reformed thinking
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and we'll see you next time.