In this episode, pastors Derek and Cliff discuss a variety of important facts about Calvin’s life and ministry while offering several edifying quotations.
Transcript
Derek: Welcome to the With All Wisdom podcast. My name is Derek Brown. I’m here today with Cliff McManis. We are both pastors and elders at Creekside Bible Church in Cupertino, California. And we have the opportunity to teach theology at the Cornerstone Bible College and Seminary in Vallejo, California. And that’s a place where we get to train pastors and we are thankful for that privilege. And here today, we are talking in part three of our discussion of John Calvin. And we encourage you to go back and listen to part one and part two. In this one, we are going to consider some specific teachings of Calvin—some of his theology—and hear from him in some quotes. Cliff’s going to kick it off here in a minute with a question. But before we get to that, I want to encourage you to check out withallwisdom.org. If you’re one of our listeners who hasn’t done that, I would encourage you to do that. And if you are one of our listeners who has, I’d encourage you to check back regularly. We always have new material every week. We publish new articles and videos and podcasts every week. And so we encourage you to check those resources out there. We really aim to help you grow in your walk with the Lord, and we seek to root all of the resources in God’s Word. So, Cliff, I want to hand it over to you right away. You had a question that you wanted to kick this episode off with.
Cliff: Yeah. And I thought we could do kind of a lot of different things, not necessarily related thematically, but things we should probably know about Calvin, since we’re talking about Calvin. The first one is, I think a lot of people—when you talk about John Calvin and they’re ignorant of his history and actually who he was—a lot of people have negative views of him for different reasons. Predestination. He didn’t believe in human will or choice, or freedom or responsibility. We’re robots. That’s a caricature and a misrepresentation of Calvin’s view. Another probably more popular one is that he was mean and cruel and vicious and heartless, and he killed heretics. And they’ll point to Michael Servetus, or however you pronounce the guy’s name, back in the 1500s when Calvin was in Geneva. And Michael Servetus was a heretic who denied the Trinity, basically undermining the deity of Christ. And did he get executed? Yes, he did. But just to clear the record, John Calvin didn’t do it. Some people mistakenly say that it was a result of church discipline. But Calvin does talk about church discipline in his Institutes and in his commentaries. And he never says anything about the church going around killing people as a result of church discipline. He didn’t believe in that. Did he believe in excommunication? Step four, Matthew 18. Yes. But that’s not exacting a sentence of death. It’s just when you’re booted out of the church and the fellowship and you can’t have communion. And we’re calling you to repentance. So that’s a misnomer to say that Calvin had Servetus killed because of church discipline or the fact that he even did it. He didn’t have the authority to do that. Calvin was in Geneva for decades, a couple of decades maybe, [and was an] influential personality there. But historians say that he actually never formally became a citizen of the city of Geneva. A town of about 12,000 people or so. It was run locally by kind of a city council of—I can’t remember if it was like 12 to 20 guys. And then there was another larger group of people they were accountable to that had to sign off on their decisions of the council of 200. And then there was another authority structure that was external to them that was responsible as well, from a distance. So Calvin didn’t have all this authority that people say he did there in Geneva. And he was first and foremost a church man and a pastor, but an influential voice. And the dominant view later in his days was Christianity, whether Catholic or reformed, there in Geneva. But just wanted to point that out. By the way, Servetus, who was a heretic, already pretty much was violating Roman Catholic law by undermining the Trinity. And so if anybody gave him the death sentence or a death penalty for his views, it was the Roman Catholic Church. They’re the ones that first put a target on his back because he wouldn’t recant or repent. So it was the Catholic Church first, and you could die pretty much for two things against the Catholic Church in those days. And that was printing the Bible in a tongue other than Latin—that was a death sentence. And then the other is undermining the Trinity or the deity of Christ. And that’s exactly what Servetus had done. And not only did Calvin not spearhead his death—he did have a say; he was an influential voice—but he didn’t have a formal say. He wasn’t a formal politician nor a citizen of the city. But he did even warn Servetus to stay away from the city that he’d already been banned from. Stay away. It won’t bode well for you if you do come. And Servetus came to the city anyway, and yes, he ended up getting executed. So people need to go back and read history on the whole complicated story instead of accepting distorted versions that misrepresent people, including Calvin.
Derek: I appreciate you doing that, Cliff, because I was going to say that some people have a visceral reaction to Calvin that is negative because of believing things that are simply not true or having a distorted view of history or this particular issue or things that he taught. And so it’s actually helpful, I think, to get people to hear who Calvin actually was, what he actually taught, and specifically about this issue. So I appreciate you doing that.
Cliff: Yes. Another thing that I wanted to highlight was a list of things that I appreciate about Calvin. You and I have already mentioned some of those, but one of them that I appreciate about Calvin is that he was a balanced theologian. He was balanced in his theology, which is a big deal for us because we are pastors/theologians, Bible teachers, and also seminary professors. And one thing that’s big at our seminary is those who are teaching theology at the seminary should not be teaching theology only on a theoretical basis, detached from church life. Detached from the Christian life. Detached from practical Christian living. It’s all just theory. And there are seminaries that do that. There are professors who do that. There’re a full-time seminary professor, but they’re not involved in church life. They’re not involved in the trenches in people’s lives. They’re not down there getting dirty with the saints. And you can become myopic and tainted. And what I appreciate about Calvin is he had balanced theology. He wasn’t just a theoretical, secluded theologian. A professional theologian in that regard. He was first and foremost a pastor of the local church. And I think he was balanced in his theology. Not that I agree with all of his theology. But there’s this healthy breadth, so that you realize John Calvin understood Paul’s comment in Acts 20 when he exhorted the elders that they need to be aware of the full counsel of God. Because that’s what Paul preached to them—the full body of doctrine. In other words, don’t get caught up in tangents, which is easy to do in theology. Seminary students do that. I did that when I was a seminary student. I did that when I graduated from seminary. I had my little tangents, my little pet peeves or whatever. And you don’t have the proper balance. You don’t have the big picture. You’re not considering the full counsel of God. And your views aren’t fully informed on everything the Bible has to say. And you pick and choose. Calvin was not like that. I think he was balanced in his theology, particularly at the end of his life. Because one thing we didn’t get to talk about as much is when he was a younger man, newly saved in his twenties, and not yet fully trained necessarily in theology like he would later become. He wasn’t married. So in a lot of ways he wasn’t tempered. He could be impetuous. And the historians say that that Farel guy was not good for him. He was not a good influence on him. Because Farel, as we said earlier, was a hothead. And he could get Calvin going pretty easily in a way that was not good or edifying and without restraint a lot of times.
And a lack of self-control. And he’d let the emotions get the best of him. And that’s why I think Calvin got booted out of Geneva the first time, because of that lack of balance. And he was more into tangents and his narrow agenda. And then he goes to Strasser, he gets married, he gets discipled by a guy named Martin Bucer—an older man of God who becomes like the first real Christian father figure in his life who does deliberate discipling of Calvin. And then you just see this beautiful maturity during that time and then later in his life when he comes back to Geneva. And the fruit of that balanced life is in his balanced writings and balanced theology. The three reasons I think he was a balanced theologian was his commitment to the exposition of the entire Bible. Word by word, verse by verse.
Derek: That’s a great point. I was going to bring that up earlier, but this is the perfect place to bring it up. One of the questions has been asked is, why is Calvin so influential? Why does he have such staying power? And I think we’ve talked about this. Well, because he took so seriously the exposition of and the exegesis of every text of scripture as far as he was able. And he was just a careful expositor.
Cliff: From the original language.
Derek: From the original languages. Yeah.
Cliff: And today we have 22 volumes of Calvin’s commentaries based on exegesis of Greek and Hebrew, focusing on what does the text say? And explaining it so we can understand it. 22 volumes. Almost the entire Bible. 48 books out of the 66 books of the Bible. Prior to Calvin, who did that in church history? The answer is nobody. Not to that depth or breadth. You’ve got Thomas Aquinas in the 1200s, who Calvin was not a fan of, by the way, and some people will try to tell us that Calvin and Aquinas were two peas in a pod. And all these apologists—William Lane Craig and whoever else—all you’ve got to do is read Calvin, and you’ll see he was not fond of Thomas Aquinas. Because Thomas Aquinas wasn’t just all about the Bible. And Catholics like to say that Aquinas—and even some Protestant evangelicals like to say—that Aquinas did a systematic theology in his 10 or 12 volumes of the Summa Theologica. But if you read it, it’s not really a systematic theology. It’s just a bunch of questions. And he uses the scholastic method to answer all these questions that he makes up. And you can go pages and pages without an answer from the Bible. He does use the Bible, but he also says, you know, what did Plato say? What did Seneca say? What did the philosopher say? And the philosopher is Aristotle. So it’s 12 volumes, but it’s not biblical theology. It’s the wisdom of men, the men of the ages, according to Aquinas. And Calvin had disdain for that, because we should just be going to scripture to see what God has to say about any given topic. But the exposition of the entire Bible gave him balance in his theology. Another thing was a lifetime of fine tuning his Institutes. Because he’d been saved one year, and he wrote the first pamphlet, only six chapters long. He said he could fit it in his pocket, and it was portable. And really, he wrote that, as you said earlier, as an apologetic to the King of France, who was pro-Catholic and anti-reformation. And Calvin’s just saying, Hey, we’re not weirdos like some of these radical bands of Baptists. That’s why he wrote it. But then he grew in wisdom as a Christian, and three years later he revamped that thing and he went from 6 to 17 chapters and expanded on his Institutes. And he had more seasoned thinking. He had some experiences in life, and he changed his mind about how he wanted that to function. And so then it went from just being a pamphlet as an apology to the king to now, you know what? I want to use this as a catechism for Christians. And so that’s why he furthered it. And then he kept working on it, adding to it, expanding it as he grew, as he matured as a Christian. And as he studied more of the Bible, there were many iterations that came out of it. So that finally at the end of his life, now in English, it’s like 1200 pages long. And I would say, you could call it a systematic theology. There are those who say his Institutes is not a systematic theology. Carl Trueman says that. But Calvin says this (this is a quote from the Institutes):
Derek: That’s a good place to start.
Cliff: Yeah. By Calvin. He said, “I wrote this as a compendium of doctrine.” I wrote this as a compendium of doctrine. That sounds like a systematic theology. But I will admit, to Carl Trueman’s credit, maybe he was emphasizing that first issue that came out. That was only six chapters long and you could fit it in your pocket, because he changed his mind. So it’s not just a pamphlet. And then he says, oh, maybe it’ll be a catechism. And then he finally ends up with this massive systematic theology specifically that he was using to train pastors.
Derek: I was just going to say, it depends on what you mean by systematic theology. If you mean by systematic theology, some sort of highly academic ivory tower abstract theological textbook—no, that’s not the Institutes. The Institutes was written for people, for pastors. I understood it to also be not a compendium of a doctrine. That was to be a complement to his commentaries so that we would read his commentaries. And you’d have this—you’d read the commentaries for the understanding of the biblical text. You’ve got the theology over here. But it was written in such a way to be beneficial to the common person.
Cliff: He did say it was specifically a complement to his commentaries. As a matter of fact, he said, if you want to know what the Bible says, don’t go to the Institutes. Go first to the passage. Hence the commentaries. And then the Institutes is systemizing all of this that he gleaned from the exegesis of scripture. HHHere’s another reason he wrote the Institutes in his own words. He said that he wrote it as an apologetic, and he added this later. Calvin was ceaselessly defending God’s truth as an apologist. He was a Christian apologist, by the way. Calvin said, “When divine truth is invalidly attacked, we must not tolerate the adulteration of one single iota of it.” We need to defend the faith. We need to defend scripture. We need to defend the Bible. And as he’s writing, in the preface to the Institutes, he’s making an appeal to Francis the I, the king of France. And he says, one of the reasons I’m writing this is because there are certain bad men and mad men who are poisoning the king’s mind against Calvin’s doctrine with sedition and mischief. So Calvin entreats the king, saying, “Let it not be imagined that I am here framing my own private defense. The cause which I plead is the common cause of all the godly and therefore the very cause of Christ.” And then he says this, “But lo, whilst I lay hidden at Basil, many faithful and holy persons were burnt alive in France. Seditious persons who by the perverse ravings and false opinions were overthrowing not only religion, but also civil order. It appeared to me that unless I opposed them to the utmost of my ability, my silence could not be vindicated from the charge of cowardice and treachery. This was the consideration which induced me to publish my Institutes of the Christian religion.” He had to speak up.
He had to speak the truth. And then the final reason that I think Calvin’s theology was balanced, the exposition of all of scripture, the growing understanding of the Institutes’s religion and continuing to refine that. And then number three is he was a shepherd who was among God’s people. I wanted to read this quote about his shepherd’s heart. I was telling you about those seven volumes of his tracts and letters that they have compiled all from during his ministry. And here’s what he said in one of those letters as he’s talking about the purpose of a pastor: “The office of a true and faithful minister [or pastor] is not only publicly to teach the people over whom he’s ordained. The duty of a minister is to visit the sick and console them by the word of the Lord, showing them that all they suffer and endure comes from the hand of God and from his good providence who sends nothing to believers except for their good and salvation. And he will quote passages of scripture suitable to this view.” That’s a shepherd’s heart.
Derek: Yeah. No kidding. Boy, that’s encouraging. So much of what you said has been incredibly edifying as a Christian and as a pastor.
Cliff: Can I share a few more quotes from Calvin? There’s nothing better than when you’re talking about Calvin to read from Calvin.
Derek: That’s a good idea.
Cliff: And some of the themes that dominated his thinking and his theology. One was just his high view of scripture. It’s incredible. He was not into natural theology. He rejected natural theology. Natural theology is doing theology without the Bible.
Derek: Very simply, that’s what it is.
Cliff: Yeah. It’s just relying on human reason. And Calvin would have none of that. So he categorically dismisses natural theology and says, we need the Bible for theology. And that’s the only way to do theology. There is no truth apart from scripture. I’m quoting now from some of his commentaries and also the Institutes commenting on Romans 10:17. Calvin says, “Saving faith comes from the gospel.” There it is. “When special revelation is preached, that’s where faith comes from. By preaching faith is produced. That’s where faith comes from. Faith comes from hearing the word of God from scripture. By preaching, faith is produced, faith is grounded on nothing else. But the truth of God for Paul does not teach us that faith springs from any other kind of doctrine. But he expressly restricts it to the word of God. And this restriction would have been improper if faith could rest on the decrees of men.” And then he talks about Peter. Peter ascribes power and efficacy to God’s word. There is no permanent life, but in God. And this is communicated to us by the word of God. What then is the word of the Lord, which gives us life. Even the law, the prophets and the gospel. Those who wander beyond the limits of revelation or the Bible find nothing but the imposters of Satan and his doge. And not the word of the Lord. And Luciferian men craftily draws away from the scriptures. Luciferian, if anybody is not pointing to you to scripture, but they’re pointing you away from scripture, they are Luciferian, says Calvin.
Derek: Wow.
Cliff: Luciferian.
Derek: The centrality of scripture.
Cliff: Yeah. I got a couple more on scripture. You did your PhD in Bibliology.
Derek: I did.
Cliff: So you have a high view of scripture.
Derek: I do. And I teach a class in Bibliology at seminary. And I love to teach it and to help people have a high view of scripture.
Cliff: Well, Calvin believed in the full inspiration, full authority of scripture. And so, you know, another thing about Calvin that I like or appreciate is he was this genius, amazing, comprehensive theologian and scholar who appreciated all that came before him. Just because he was a reformer, he didn’t jettison everything that came before him. Oh, we don’t need them. Even if they were in the Roman Catholic church, he didn’t do that. He was a patristic scholar, early church scholar. He quotes all these historians in his Institutes. So he appreciates church history. He was around before higher criticism came and invaded. So he actually believes that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, and all these simple things that are true. Anyway, so here’s just a couple quotes on his view of scripture. “The highest place would be given to scripture. Everything being brought to it as a test.” So it was the highest source of truth. Everything pertaining to Christianity was prescribed and contained in scripture. So that’s the sufficiency of scripture right there. Everything pertaining to Christianity was prescribed and contained in scripture. “The holy scriptures contain a perfect doctrine to which nothing can be added
to. Christians should confine themselves in their thinking within the limits of the word of God.” Do not go beyond what is written. What God said in the scriptures, we know that God has spoken to us. We owe to scripture the same reverence we owe to God. “Scripture bears upon the face of it as clear evidence of its truth as white and black do of their color. Our conviction of the truth of scripture must be derived from a higher source than human conjectures, judgments, or reasons.” Other words, we don’t need humans to validate the legitimacy of the Bible. It is its own validating authority.
Derek: I read that quote—that we owe the same reverence to scripture that we owe to God—to my students this past week. And you can tell initially they’re like, whoa, is that really true? And it’s because it’s God’s very word. And he gets it exactly right. You can’t claim to say, oh, I respect Cliff. I respect you and I honor you and you’re great. And then you write me a letter and I rip it to shreds, but I still honor you and respect you. Like those things don’t go together. If you disrespect the word of God, you’ve disrespected God. So that quote, it’s very concise, but it’s exactly right that about the reverence we show to God’s word.
Cliff: And as you’re reading Calvin, one of my favorite things is you’ll read about Christ, and how he exalts the majesty of Christ time and time again. He doesn’t lose focus. He’s laser focused—it’s all about the majesty and exaltation of Jesus Christ. So this was my last quote. Okay, Derek, on exalting Christ. It’s all about Jesus. “Christ alone ought to be preached alone, held forth alone, named alone. Look to whenever the subject considered is obtaining the forgiveness of sins.” And then this last one here is from the Institutes talking about Christ. Everything we have is in Christ. “If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that he possesses it. If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, we shall find them in his unction; strength in his government; purity in his conception; indulgence in his nativity, in which he was made like us in all respects, in order that he might learn to sympathize with us. If we seek redemption, we shall find it in his passion; acquittal in his condemnation; remission of the curse in his cross; satisfaction in his sacrifice; purification in his blood; reconciliation in his descent into hell; mortification of the flesh in his sepulcher; newness of life in his resurrection; immortality also in his resurrection; the inheritance of a celestial kingdom in his entrance into heaven; protection , security, and the abundant supply of all blessings, in his kingdom; secure anticipation of judgement in the power of judging committed to him. In fine, since in him all kinds of blessings are treasured up, let us draw a full supply from him, and none from any other quarter.”
Derek: Wow. That’s wonderful.
Cliff: It is. Yeah.
Derek: We talked about in episode two, that union with Christ, that he really emphasized all the blessings come through union with Christ. Blessings of predestination, election—they’re not abstract doctrines. They are blessings that come through the person and work of Christ.
Cliff: The union of Christ. That’s a doctrine. I don’t think we think about it that much, but that’s true as Christians. I mean, it’d be interesting for you and I as pastors to on a Sunday just go around and randomly quiz all of our folks at our church and just ask them in a sentence, tell me what the union of Christ is. I think they would struggle.
Derek: I agree. And within the last 15 years, there’s been three significant books written on the union with Christ, I think precisely to fill that need. I don’t think it’s a well-known doctrine among God’s people. And yet it’s so vital.
Cliff: Yes. It is profound. It’s a blessing. We need to know about it. It’s so encouraging. As one theologian has put it and summarized the doctrine of the union of Christ simply by saying, this is the doctrine of the union of Christ. All that belongs to Christ from the Father belongs to you and me. If you’re a Christian, all that belongs to Christ belongs to you.
Derek: Wow.
Cliff: That’s the union of Christ.
Derek: That’s amazing. Before we close, can we have a few more minutes before we close? If you wouldn’t mind going back, and I wanted to ask you questions specifically. Because you made the point to say that Calvin didn’t just cast aside everything that had come before. Sometimes the reformers are viewed that way. Actually, the people that did that would be called the radical reformers, who had no place for previous theological tradition. No place for any kind of creed. No place for any kind of teaching from others of the past. And sometimes the reformers are grouped in with that, and so I wanted to just hear if you could kind of comment a little bit on Calvin’s approach to what we might call tradition and how he handled that in relation to scripture during the Reformation. Because I see this as a big misunderstood thing as well among folks.
Cliff: Yeah. He was not a vigilante—a theological vigilante. I think that one thing that’s a visual that is helpful on this is if you go to, at least I recommend this edition of The Institutes, because it’s the only one I’ve had for 35 years. <laugh> That’s the only one I’ve read. I haven’t read other versions. But anyway, it’s translated by Henry Beveridge. And this one is in one volume. But in the back in the index it has—now, Calvin didn’t do this. Some editor did this. It was great. They put an index of the names of all the people that Calvin quotes in his Institutes. And they are people from church history, early church history, and not just church folk. He quotes Aristotle in the works of Aristotle. Calvin was highly educated. He knew Aristotle. He read Aristotle. He knew Plato. He read Plato. And then all the early church fathers—Ambrose, Augustine Aquinas, and Ansel. And you could go through and he’s quoted his number one favorite author that he likes to quote. Who do you think? Augustine. Augustine, by far. Most of his quotes from Augustine, if not all of them, are positive, which makes sense because when we think of predestination as we know it, Calvin didn’t invent that. Augustine actually was big on predestination. He wasn’t always in his life. But later he is just studying the Bible and is like, well, there it is. Predestination, election, and the sovereignty of God were highly influenced by Augustine in that regard. And also the sinfulness of man. And the depravity of man. Augustine was big on that, because it’s in the Bible. So when you’re going through this index, you see that he is quoting from Augustine at length, and Hillary and Gaylen and Cyril and Gregory of the Bishop of Rome. Oh, look at this. Homer and Ignatius and Josephus and Justin Martyr.
Derek: Wow. That’s incredible.
Cliff: So there’s just a wealth of resources. He was an amazing scholar. How did he get access to all those in his day and age?
Derek: I wonder that, too. Yeah. It’s so easy for us, but yeah. You can’t think that our ease of access to resources was the same as back then; it wasn’t even close. So how was he procuring these resources?
Cliff: Because he was in France at some pretty renowned universities that probably had good libraries. But they were dominated by a certain bent and weren’t necessarily making the classics available that he’s quoting from at times here. Or all the works of Augustine. But anyway, he understands, I think, Ephesians 4:11-12, when Paul wrote that epistle where it says, when Christ was exalted on high and then ascended into heaven, he gave gifts to the church. So that the church body might grow and become edified and develop over time to this beautiful bride that he’s going to marry someday. And the gifts that he gave to the church, first and foremost, are men or gifted men to the church. And one thing all of them have in common is they’re going to explain the word of God to people. The apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists. Those are the gifts. And so godly men who have the ability to teach the word of God are a very specific gift from God and Jesus to the church. And it’s not just for their era. It’s for the development of the body of Christ until it reaches full maturity. Because in chapter two and four of Ephesians, that’s Paul’s point. This is going somewhere, this great crescendo of the beautiful spotless lamb of God, or a body of Christ, which is the church that Jesus, the Lamb of God, is going to marry somebody. And there’s a process of growth through the edification of the teaching of the word of God that happens through these offices in the church. And one of those offices is teacher and another is pastor. And so we need to take note. Thank you, God. For now, for us, we’ve had 2000 years of gifted teachers that God has given us as a church and as a resource. And we are blessed by that. And so we need to appreciate the past. People quote C.S. Lewis a lot, you know, about how C.S. Lewis appreciated those from the past who were intelligent and gifted and insightful and paved a path that we don’t need to repave, that we should walk down. They made it easier for us. We shouldn’t disparage them just because they’re old. Kinda like my kids, unfortunately, anytime I suggest a movie from the eighties, they say, now, dad, we don’t watch that. And their only reason is because it’s old. I’m like, you’ve got to be kidding. You’re missing out on the classics! <laugh> And I dunno if you have noticed this, Derek, in your seminary classes, but I do. A lot of the seminary students, they just want what’s new. And I’m thinking, man, some of the greatest commentaries and systematic theologies on Greek and Hebrew resources are the oldies—the old jewels. Nobody’s going to surpass this guy and what he did. And I think that was Calvin’s mentality. He understood the scope of time and history and the words of Isaiah that God determined the end from the beginning. He has this timeless perspective of history and all these gifted people that God has blessed us with.
Derek: And I really, that’s exactly where I wanted you to go with that question because as I’ve studied church history and what’s confronted with the radical reformers in their approach to these things and really viewing the Christian life is rejecting any kind of help. All I need is the Bible and me. And maybe a small group of us, and we’re going to figure this out. It actually leads to heresy. That’s what it leads to. Often, it does.
Cliff: You do approach heresy. Because you’re losing the historical bearings of truth that Jesus said was rooted in Matthew. I’m going to establish and build the church and preserve it. And we need to stay in continuity with that.
Derek: Yeah. So that’s excellent. And we hope that this has been helpful to you. It certainly has been edifying to me. I loved hearing all that stuff about Calvin. A lot of it I had learned before, but a lot of it was also new. And then just to be reminded of his approach to Christian ministry, his approach to the Christian life, the way he treated the word of God—all very edifying. And then also how he learned from others and learned from the past. Excellent. So, thank you, Cliff. You’ve done a lot of research. So I want to thank you for doing all this research and all the years of faithful study that you’ve given to issues of history and people of history to be able to service in this way. So thank you, Cliff, for your work there. We want to encourage you again to check out withallwisdom.org. You’ll find resources. We have some historical resources where we review various theological issues of the past. We even review some books. So we encourage you to check those things out there as well. And until next time, keep seeking the Lord and his word.
