This is the year for celebrating John Calvin’s birthday (2009). I have been re-reading his letters and am amazed once again at the amount of time a busy writer, preacher, and Protestant apologist spent doing pastoral work. The letters are filled with concern for the average man on the street to whom he was ministering. Things like bringing people into contact with one another who had been displaced by persecution, helping select brides for church members, dealing with church disciplinary matters, writing letters of comfort to bereaved or persecuted persons, spending time at Diets representing his community, taking part in the affairs of Geneva, dealing with drunkenness, wayward church members, those who were fearful, anxious and dying, and instructing other preachers in how to counsel members of their congregations. All of this—and much more—fill his letters, showing his loving care for his flock.
Protection of the church was also a very large concern—a church that had dismissed him, and then three years later re-called him, acknowledging that they could not do without him. A man who asked his meager salary to be reduced in order to help pay the stipend for other needy preachers. One who for years, ate off
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