Last week I listed a number of quotations from Scott M Manetsch’s book, Calvin’s Company of Pastors on ministry and life during and just after John Calvin’s life. Here are a few more on the subject of how preaching was practiced and received in Geneva during the era of the Reformation:

The Ministry of the Word

…the pulpit stood at the epicenter of controversy and change in reformed Geneva. In the minds of Geneva’s ministers, the proclamation of the Scripture was God’s dynamic instrument for bringing about personal spiritual regeneration, the reformation of the church, and the transformation of society according to the righteousness of Christ. 146

Preaching in Calvin’s Geneva

What was noteworthy . . . was not that Protestant leaders like Luther, Zwingli, or Calvin championed Christian preaching per se, but that they viewed the proclamation of the Word of God as the minister’s primary duty and restructured parish life in view of this priority. 148

 

The Ecclesiastical Ordinances (1541) envisioned that a pastoral staff of five men and three assistants would preach at least twenty sermons in the city each week. 148

 

The preacher was not the proprietor of a pulpit or the captain of his congregation: it was Christ who presided over his church through the Word. At least in theory, ministers of the Christian gospel were interchangeable. 150

 

For most of his career in Geneva, Calvin preached once or twice on Sundays, and every day of the week on alternate weeks, a schedule that demanded around eighteen to twenty sermons per month, or two hundred fifty sermons per year. In all, Calvin probably delivered well over four thousand sermons in the course of his ministry in Geneva. 150

In the Worship Service

Longwinded preachers continued to be a serious enough problem that in 1850 the city council installed forty-five minute hourglasses in all the city’s churches to assure that the sermon remained an acceptable length and that services ended promptly on the hour. Even so, Geneva’s magistrates were still complaining about long sermons in the city’s churches three decades later. 153

 

The Genevan ideal of a simple, well-ordered service in which the faithful attentively listened to, understood, and responded to the Word of God was not always achieved in practice. . . . Members of the congregation frequently arrived late to Sunday worship, missing the congregational singing and the introductory prayers. Others left early, causing a commotion during the concluding baptismal service. . . . In Geneva’s churches, babies often wailed, dogs barked, and schoolboys chatted happily  through the morning sermon. Worshipers were also distracted sometimes when people succumbed to violent coughing fits when drunkards vomited in full view of the assembly, or when weary souls fell asleep and snored along with the sermon. 154

 

Pierre Toulieu also got into trouble when he sat through a worship service in a countryside church with his musket propped on his shoulder and his hunting dog sleeping at his feet. It is clear, moreover, that many townspeople welcomed the preaching service as an opportunity to socialize with friends or flirt with members of the opposite sex rather than to listen to the sermon. 154

The Art of Preaching

As for Calvin, he ‘never spoke without filling the mind of the hearer with the weightiest of insights.’ 15

 

At the heart of Calvin’s hermeneutic and theory or preaching stands a particular understanding of the nature and authority of the sacred text. . . . because the Jewish and Christian Scriptures were the inspired Word of God they should command unique authority within the Christian church (sola scriptura).

 

Based on their doctrine of Scripture, Calvin and his reformed colleagues drew a number of conclusions that had significant bearing on how they understood the nature of preaching . . .

First, Calvin believed that the divine message of Scripture was timeless truth and altogether relevant for the men and women in his congregation.

Second, the primary manner by which Christians hear their God speaking is through the preaching ministry of the church.

Third, the preachers’ authority is always derivative. . . . In his sermons, therefore, the preacher must invent nothing new, but faithfully explain the message of salvation announced by the biblical authors through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Fourth . . . the proclamation of God’s Word was powerful – indeed, life changing – as the Spirit of God used it in the life of the elect. 159-160

For Calvin, and for his reformed colleagues in Geneva, Christian preaching is expository preaching; that is, it endeavors to explain the biblical text in its literary and historical context and applies the message to the needs and problems of the audience. Put simply, the goal of preaching is to explain the intention of the biblical author for the building up of the congregation. To do this, preachers follow the example of Scripture by employing a plain, straightforward style. Calvin recommends that Christian preachers work through their passage verse by verse, “peeling” the text as they explain historical background, define key words, discuss important theological concepts, and occasionally paraphrase the passage to lay bare its meaning. Convinced of the fundamental clarity of scriptural revelation, Calvin warns preachers against speculation and subtle arguments that conceal rather than reveal the truth of God’s Word. Expositors must especially shun allegorical interpretations unless the Scripture text absolutely demands it. “Let us know,” Calvin states, “that the true meaning of Scripture is the natural and simple one, and let us embrace and hold it resolutely.” 160

 

“There are two things required [of preachers], first that we provide a good and pure explanation to the faithful of that which is required for their salvation, and then that we add as much vehemence as appropriate, so that the doctrine touches and enlivens hearts.” 161

Calvin in the Pulpit

It appears that Calvin stood before his congregation without sermon notes, with only the Hebrew or Greek text of Scripture before him.  162

 

Calvin’s sermon displays no discernible homiletic outline and ignores the elements of a public speech prescribed by the classic rhetoricians. The sermon concludes abruptly as Calvin announces that he has run out of time and ‘will save the rest for another occasion.’ 162

 

Preaching After Calvin

The Venerable Company coached student preachers in the weekly meetings of the Congregation and sometimes gave ministerial candidates preaching assignments in the countryside parishes to develop their homiletic skills. 164

 

. . . the majority of the ministers were competent, though unexceptional, expositors of the Word of God. 174