Preaching in Calvin's pulpit is a great honor and I doubt that I could imagine a greater one. But it's midnight and my bus leaves the hotel in four hours time and I have yet to pack!

Check back over the next few days, as we will be adding additional interviews.

Day 4 and 3 more sermons: Geoff Thomas on election, Joel Beeke on the church and Martin Holdt on Psalm 100. "How can you know if you are elect," Geoff Thomas asked. "If you have Jesus Christ in the grasp of your own faith, you are elect," he answered.

(Ligon Duncan preaching in St. Pierre Cathedral, Geneva)

Three more sermons today: Steve Lawson on Galatians 1:6-10, an uncompromising call to defend the gospel against all detractors after the fashion of the Reformer, Iain D. Campbell on Romans 8:26-27,34, on "Three Great Intercessions", and Ligon Duncan on Philippians 2:12-13 on "The Christian Life."

Iain D. Campbell's sermon was a tour de force, powerful and deeply moving, containing the sentence, "We ask for what we want and sometimes it is be denying us what we want that we learn what it is we need."  Ligon's sermon, noteable for having three points (yes!) and powerfully reminded those of us who are discouraged by our on-going battle with sin that God has not abandoned us but will complete that which he has begun. The sermon began with a reference to the American War of Independence and General "Black Jack" Pershing's comment after landing in France during the First World War, "Lafayette, we are here."  And if America was repaying its debt to France then, there was also a sense in which it was doing so this week to another Frenchman, John Calvin. "Jean Cauvin, nous sommes ici!"

In an acoustically challenged building (actually it must be the worst acoustics I have ever heard), some truly memorable things were said, none more so than Dr. Godfrey's plea that when someone hears the term "Reformed" they would immediately think of someone who preaches the gospel and invites sinners to believe in Jesus Christ.

The sermons and lectures are due to be published in a commemorative volume (details later).

Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Orombi, preached from Matthew 24_25-31 on the nature of servanthood in pursuit of the gospel, urging us to commitment to Scripture, zeal in the pursuit of God and a willingness to suffer for the cause of the gospel.

The evening was brought to a close with a truly wonderful exposition of Ephesians 1:3-6 by Bryan Chapell, a sermon which he called "In praise of predestination." With some memorable illustrations from Calvin and elsewhere, he carefully took us through the text urging us to see Paul's commitment in showing us more of God's Fatherhood than his sovereignty. God, he told us, is shouting: "I've been in love with you longer than the stars have been in sky or the fish have been in the sea."

Portrait has a verve about it that Parker's larger bio doesn't. And you can read it in a sitting (at 124 pages). A few small blemishes are the only warnings I offer the reader.

(1) Parker has some quasi-Barthian qualms about Calvin's doctrine of predestination 9p. 57. As much as I admire Parker as a towering historian and scholar of Calvin, you may safely ignore him here.

(2) Parker can't resist one passing jab at "American fundamentalists" in addressing Calvin's doctrine of Scripture. But Parker's very brief evidence for asserting that Calvin didn't believe in inerrancy (p. 52) misses the point. Again, one detects the influence of a kind of conservative Barthianism on Parker's reading of Calvin (you can see this also in the secondary literature on Calvin that he cites elsewhere: Dowey, Torrance, etc.). The interested student would do well to read John Murray's article on Calvin's doctrine of Scripture to get a quick feel for the lay of the land on Calvin's own view of this subject.

(3) Parker gives a weak defense of Calvin in the Servetus affair, IMHO. Granted, he's writing to (what he apparently senses is) a hostile or at best suspcious audience when it comes to Calvin (mid-20th century mainstream, church-going Brits, esp. Anglicans) and trying to put Calvin in a good light, but I think he falls short of helping the reader understand the historical context of that whole lamented story.

(4) You may catch a few Anglican ecclesiological swipes at Calvin along the way as well. Move along, nothing to see there!

But, really, as a whole the book gets you a feel for Calvin than many longer books fail to do. So read and enjoy in this year of the Calvinpalooza!

Thabiti and Friends, or as it is officially known as:  Glory Road:  The Journeys of 10 African-Americans into Reformed Christianity, Edited by Anthony J. Carter (Crossway).  I have looked through this already in its earlier manuscript form, offering an endorsement (which my good friends at Crossway put inside the book and not on the back cover--Bruce Hornsby lyrics come to mind, "good enough to hire, not good enough to marry."  Don't worry, Crossway, I still love you and your Bible.)  I'm looking forward to reading it in its finished form.

Douglas Sweeney, Jonathan Edwards and the Ministry of the Word:  a Model of Faith and Thought (IVP).  I have been looking forward to this book ever since I heard that Doug was working on it.  Just when you thought they've said all there is to say about Jonathan Edwards, we learn there's more, profoundly more.  Doug is a great historian-theologian and this promises to be the best book on Edwards in a long time.

Gregory Wills, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1859-2009 (Oxford).  Greg is an extremely careful historian who labors over every word.  The result is a fine work.  That this book was picked up by Oxford is telling of Greg's ability.  Every institution should have such an historian.

Christopher J H Wright, The Mission of God:  Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative (IVP).  I've skimmed through this book before, but it's time to read it cover to cover, and there's a lot between those covers.

Alain de Botton, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (Pantheon).  Here's the line I happened upon while browsing through this book at Barnes & Noble, having read it I bought it immediately:  "We are now as imaginatively disconnected from the manufacture and distribution of our goods as we are practically in reach of them, a process of alienation which has stripped us of myriad opportunities for wonder, gratitude, and guilt" (35).

Michael Capuzzo, Close to Shore:  The Terrifying Shark Attacks of 1916 (Broadway Books).  This to me is the ultimate anti-beach-book book.  Best, from what I've read so far, if read aloud in near proximity to the ocean.

I'm sure some others will sneak in there.  Every summer I like to read through The Old Man and The Sea, Pilgrim's Progress, and the Confessions.  What they all have in common, I have no idea.

What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak, by Dave Eggers.  This is a biographical novel chronicling the atrocities of Southern Sudan and The Lost Boys.  It's wonderfully written, calling to mind themes and writing techniques reminiscent of Ellison's The Invisible Man.  What Is the What was a finalist in the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.  Read this, weep and laugh.

In a similar genre, I'm looking forward to reading The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.  I'm late getting to this one, but am eager to absorb the story.  Haven't seen the movie; we'll see if the movie lives up to the book.  Please don't tell me!

I hope to continue enjoying The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories.

In the young marrieds small group my wife and I host, we should finish up Paul Tripp's War of Words: Getting to the Heart of Your Communication Struggles.  He's been getting to the heart of some of my many struggles for a couple months now.  And it's been refreshing, convicting, helpful, and hopeful!  Tripp's writing is friendly, clear, and revealing.  We've read several books together as a small group, and I think this one is winning the "most favorite" award.

As brief meditations for part of my personal devotion time, I'm reading Joel Beeke's 365 Days with Calvin and Ajith Fernando's The Call to Joy and Pain: Embracing Suffering in Your Ministry.  Can't do much better than Beeke on Calvin and Fernando on Christian suffering.  Fernando and Crossway were honored with the 2008 Christianity Today Book Award in the "Church/Pastoral Leadership" category.

I'm meandering through J. Kameron Carter's Race: A Theological Account.  How's this for interesting?  He starts by examining Irenaeus' Against Heresies for a framework for countering a racialized worldview as a theological problem.

And, finally, I'm hoping to dip into Keith A. Mathison's From Age to Age: The Unfolding of Biblical Eschatology.  Looking for a little help on the Olivet Discourse!  Our own Dr. Derek Thomas says it's: "Meticulously comprehensive, this veritable compendium of biblical theology from Genesis to Revelation examines every possible nuance of eschatological insight.  Mathison has provided us with an invaluable reference tool, a tour de force unlike any other on this hugely significant topic."  I've learned to take Mr. Thomas at his word.

            If you would like more information about "Calvin for the 21^st Century," check out this website http://www.puritanseminary.org/conference/index.php.  Those interested should take advantage of the preregistration discount being offered through July 24^th. Space is limited.