The Expository Genius of John Calvin

Hearts are astounded. Souls are arrested. Christians are convicted, encouraged, and invigorated in their faith. These are the effects that the Holy Spirit produces when God’s Word is accurately expounded and earnestly proclaimed. This was the kind of preaching that marked the ministry of John Calvin, the great Genevan Reformer.

What was it about Calvin’s sermons that made him a leading figure in the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation? Why do his biblical expositions continue to rivet and edify Christians to this day? The answer becomes clear when we look at Calvin’s approach to the preaching of sacred Scripture.

In The Expository Genius of John Calvin, Dr. Steven Lawson delves into the commitments, practices, and techniques that made Calvin such an effective preacher. He identifies thirty-two distinctives of the Reformer’s pulpit ministry, providing comments from Calvin’s writings, quotations from Reformation scholars, and examples from Calvin’s own sermons. In the end, Dr. Lawson calls on a new generation of pastors to follow the Reformer’s example of strong expository preaching.