I like all the classes I teach, but especially like this one, I always look forward to getting into this again. It's been a couple of years since I've taught it. And I learn something every time, reading through Calvin, and also find it a blessing in different ways to go through this material again. So I'm looking forward to doing that with you this semester. I'll use a prayer from Calvin to begin each class. We have a lot of Calvin's prayers. His students took these down as he prayed them, fortunately. And those have been preserved, so there are numerous prayers that we can use from Calvin. But the one I want to use today is one that we're not really sure it's from Calvin, but it's often attributed to Calvin. It is in our hymn book. I greet thee, who my sure redeemer art is how it begins. And you'll notice in the Trinity hymn, though, there's not a scribe to Calvin. It is a scribe to the Strasbourg Psalter of 1545. And we know Calvin was in Strasbourg from 1538 to 1541, so-called three golden years, Calvin's life, when he was working with Martin Beuser in Strasbourg. And we know Calvin also highly recommended this 1545 Psalter as meeting his criteria for acceptable worship. So these words are not by Calvin. They were words that Calvin knew and approved them. And I'd like to pray the prayer in two parts. I'll pray part of the hymn, it's really a prayer. I greet thee, who my sure redeemer art. And then I'll make a few more comments and pray the rest of it. Let's pray. I greet thee, who my sure redeemer art. My only trust and savior of my heart. Who pained its undergo for my poor sake. I pray thee from our hearts all cares to take. Thou art the king of mercy and of grace, reigning omnipotent in every place. So come, O king, and our whole being sway. Shine on us with the light of thy pure day, amen. I think as I was praying that, you may have detected some expected notes of Calvin's theology coming through. God is king, who demands our full allegiance. So come, O king, and our whole being sway. I will say that statements like that will appear quite often in the institutes, which is not just scientific theology, but a book of apiety, a book of devotion. Calvin, minute to be dead. And those words that I just prayed speak about God as sovereign God. God is almighty, reigning omnipotent in every place. So God's sovereignty, God's kingship, demanding our allegiance. These are themes that we come to expect from Calvin. But the hymn goes on to enumerate other characteristics of God. God's love, God's gentleness, the importance of Christians being one, unity of the church. Those are themes that we probably don't as readily associate with Calvin. But I think we should. And I hope, by the time we've studied the semester through the institutes, we'll see that we can think of love and mercy of God as just as prominent in Calvin's thought as the sovereignty of God. So let me pray the rest of the hymn now. Let's pray. Thou art the life by which alone we live, and all our substance and our strength receive. O comfort us in death's approaching hour, strong-hearted then to face it by thy power. Thou hast the true and perfect gentleness, no harshness has thou and no bitterness. Make us to taste the sweet grace found in thee, and ever stay and thy sweet unity. Our hope is in no other, save in thee. Our faith is built upon thy promise free. O grant to us such stronger hope and sure that we can boldly conquer and endure. Amen. Now you're going to need the syllabus, the two volumes of the McNeil battles edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion. Notice that some of your copies look a little different. Mine is one of the older ones. So it's the same, same book. Let's turn to the syllabus, and I'll go through some of this in terms of what we're going to be doing in class. And we'll look at our schedule, and then today we'll look at the first of our lectures, Galois Institutes, structure and organization. The description of the class is a reading and analysis of the Institutes of the Christian Religion with attention to Calvin's method, arrangement of material, and biblical devotional theological content. Objectives, one, understanding the contents and theological method of the Institutes. Now you probably expect that, that's what you would expect to get out of a class in Calvin's Institutes. But two other objectives, very real objectives, which maybe you would not think about, increase knowledge of the Bible. This is a class in theology, but it's also a class in Bible, and you'll become aware of the fact that Calvin's Institutes is packed full of scripture, well used, well exegeded. And if you read the Institutes, you'll not only come to understand Calvin's theological method, but hopefully your appreciation of the Bible, your love for the Bible, and your knowledge of the Bible will be increased as well. And then thirdly, deeper personal piety, already spoken about that, that's very much at the center of what Calvin is writing. This is not hard, high scientific theology. It's very much theology written from the passion of a man's heart, and he exposes his heart to us as he writes his theology. And he expects us to be moved to deeper allegiance and love to God as we study his writing. So keep those objectives in mind, those are there not just because I have to have some objectives for this class, but I think they're truly important objectives that we should set before us. Methods, a lot of reading, not all of these two volumes, but a good bit of it, almost all of the first three books, and not all of book four, we could read all of it. We'd be good to read all of it, but book four does have some extended passages related to Roman Catholic sacraments that Calvin rejects. A lot of that has to do with church history and with matters related to medieval Catholicism. It's very valuable, very useful, but we won't read it now because you'll find enough reading. If you do want to read it now, it's fine, but you won't have to. So you'll be reading, and I'll be talking about what you're reading. So those are the methods you read, I talk, and we can discuss things in class as well. Requirements, read the assigned sections of the institutes, we'll read 1146 pages out of the 1486, which we find in the McNeil battle edition. The reading is to be completed before class on the date assigned, and we'll come to that in a moment that has to do with this reading schedule. Note that the number, total number of pages required for each class is indicated in parentheses. These totals generally follow between 30 and 50 pages. Pretty manageable chunk, although you won't be able to skim this, this is the kind of reading that you're going to have to allow some time for. Occasionally, the reading will exceed these numbers, it's important to keep up with the reading, and even read ahead in order to be able to accommodate the longer assignments in your reading schedule. So you'll notice that if you turn to the reading schedule, have 34 pages, 27 pages, 63 pages, 37 pages, 40 pages, and then suddenly 99 pages. So keep that in mind, because you'll see the heavier reading assignments coming, and either get ahead or reserve some extra time for those. So reading, secondly, here's a second assignment, keep a journal as you read the institutes. Record memorable quotations, striking ideas, sermonic possibilities, illustrations, questions, your own thoughts, and responses to Calvin's material. This should not be an outline, don't try to outline the institutes. If you want to look at a pretty substantial outline, you can check Ford Lewis Battles' analysis of the Institutes of the Christian Religion, which is really a pretty good sized book, so his outline is a detailed outline. And it's valuable, but I don't want you to do an outline. I want you to carry on a conversation with Calvin, it could be very personal, things that need a lot to you, perhaps things that don't question you have, things you don't agree with, things you don't understand, things you do understand. Ideas for sermons, illustrations, personal applications, anything you want to write in your journal. It's just to keep you engaged with the material, to give you something that you can use later. Not only to remind you that you've actually read through most of Calvin's institutes, which is something that most people have not done. In fact, most Presbyterians have not done. In fact, most Presbyterian ministers have not done. So this is your opportunity to do it. But to also have a journal, yes. You can do it any way you want to. You can write it out, paragraph form. You can do it in shorter sentences or excerpts. And you can do it in any form. You can do it by hand, have a little notebook and just put your notes in there. If you'd like to use a computer, you can do that. So it's entirely up to you as to how you do the journal. But I will have a look at it. So you need to do the reading and do the journal. And then the last day the class needs. I'll collect the journals and have a look at those. And you'll get a grade on those. The grade really is just to indicate that you did it. You know, I'm not going to read every word that all of you have written about the institutes. But I will scan through each one, read parts, get an idea of what's going on in your journal. If you want to put things in there that are very personal, you can do that. And if you don't need to see it, just indicate such or don't include those pages or something. So I won't read what you don't want to read. But I will have a look at the journals to see what you're doing. One other assignment, research paper on some topic of Calvin's theology, kind of a traditional, typical, seminary research paper, 10 to 15 pages. And you choose if you want to do this, you choose a topic in Calvin that interests you, knowledge of God, creation, providence, Scripture, baptism, infant baptism. Civil government, whatever it is that you want to work on. And if you do a paper, what you should do with that is to summarize Calvin's treatment of that material in the institutes. But also go beyond the institutes to Calvin's treatises, his commentaries, perhaps even his letters to fill out as much as you can. But Calvin has to say on that particular topic. You can do that, or you can take up final exam. Don't do both. If you want to do a paper, you do a paper. If you're not really into papers and would rather take an exam, then there will be a final comprehensive exam. Okay, the text I've already said is McNeil, battle's edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion, the grading, journal, half paper, or exam, half. Okay, questions about any of that. Let's go to the reading schedule. Today we're going to do Calvin's Institutes structure and organization. This is just the introductory material in the McNeil battles edition of the Institutes Roman numeral 29 through page 31. If you have read that, be a good idea to read it sometime along the way. Okay, our next class will be knowledge of God one. You'll see the reading of the institutes. Now, I haven't put page numbers there, the way that traditionally the institutes is referred to as not by page numbers. That's because different editions and different translations will have different pagination. So, different ways this is done. This is the way I've chosen to do it. The one stands for book one, and the one through five, chapters one through five. So book one, chapters one through five. You should read before it x2's to you. That's 34 pages just to give you an idea of how much is coming knowledge of God to doctrine of God, creation, providence, sin, gospel, and law. Old and New Testaments and then Christ one and Christ two Holy Spirit and faith, repentance, Christian life, justification and Christian freedom, prayer, election, resurrection, church one, church two. And we will do both sacraments and baptism and Lord's Supper and civil government. I'm going to move on now. I'll look in some detail with you on this matter of structure and outline. But I'll postpone that for a moment and I will go to lesson one.