Public Lecture Day on John Calvin
at
Presbyterian Theological College
Wednesday  August 5th, 10am – 4.30pm, 7.30pm

PTC Melbourne is hosting a day of  lectures to commemorate the  500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin.
There will be lectures morning and afternoon, and a public meeting in the evening.  The lectures will be addressed by Dr Carl Trueman. Dr Carl Trueman is Professor of Historical Theology and Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, USA and a well known international author and lecturer in his field.
John Calvin was a theologian, pastor, biblical exegete, and tireless apologist for Reformed Christianity, and ranks among the most important thinkers in church history. His theological works, biblical commentaries, tracts, treatises, sermons, and letters helped establish the Reformation as a legitimate and thriving religious movement throughout Europe.  No theologian has been as acclaimed or assailed as much as Calvin. [...]

I sat, with two friends, in the picture window of a quaint restaurant just off the corner of the town-square. The food and the company were both especially good that day.

As we talked, my attention was drawn outside, across the street. There, walking into town, was a man who appeared to be carrying all his worldly goods on his back. He was carrying, a well-worn sign that read, ‘I will work for food.’ My heart sank.

I brought him to the attention of my friends and noticed that others around us had stopped eating to focus on him. Heads moved in a mixture of sadness and disbelief.

What is the secret of the good life?

Is it having ‘x’ amount of dollars in the bank so you can do what you like whenever you like? Is it having not merely job security but a realisation that your work matters, or perhaps better still that it not only brings satisfaction to you as well as benefit to others, but that it actually fills you with enjoyment? Is that the key to the good life? Is it where you live, and that if you have a sea-change then you will finally find yourself living the good life?

Have you noticed, even within this congregation, that God does not deal with us all in exactly the same way? One He matures through this trial, another through that trial, and yet another through no apparent trial. One He calls to serve in this way, another in that way; and of course connected to that is the distribution of gifts.

It is important that we bear this in mind lest we think that Elijah’s experiences are normative for all believers. That is not the case. It was God’s design for Elijah, and not necessarily for any other; a fact clearly demonstrated to us in this chapter.

How would you like that on your tombstone, or for those in the modern techno-age as your Facebook ‘Status’?

Obadiah’s status for all eternity is that he “feared the Lord greatly”.

Sure, the context shows that he was not immune from fear of man, but the point is that the dominant note of his life was that he feared the Lord.