Cited in sermons
John Calvin
990 sermons · All people cited
The Third Missionary Journey, Part 3
Acts 19:21–41 records Paul's final days in Ephesus, culminating in a riot instigated by the silversmith Demetrius, whose financial interests were threatened by the gospel's advance against idolatry. The passage is examined under four headings: Paul's strategic plans for further ministry, the anger of the silversmiths rooted in profit dressed as piety and patriotism, the confused uproar in the theater, and the intervention of the city clerk whose cool legal reasoning protected the church. The exposition draws out the apologetic purpose of Luke's account — demonstrating that Roman civil authority found no legal fault with Christianity — and closes with an urgent call to forsake every idol and trust the righteousness of Christ alone.
Waging the Good War
First Timothy 1:18–20 charges Timothy to wage the good warfare of the Christian faith, grounded in faith and a good conscience. This exposition identifies two weapons of the faithful minister—trust in the living God and a conscience calibrated by sound doctrine—set against the backdrop of false teachers who have shipwrecked the faith by rejecting the gospel of free and sovereign grace. The sermon then turns to the solemn consequence of neglecting that warfare, tracing the excommunication of Hymenaeus and Alexander as a case study in church discipline executed for the purity of the church and the potential restoration of the offender. Hearers are pressed to examine whether they possess genuine discernment regarding the gospel and genuine sensitivity toward sin, waging the warfare not to earn salvation but in response to the grace already secured in Christ.
The Third Missionary Journey, Part 1
Acts 19:1–10 opens Paul's extended ministry in Ephesus on the third missionary journey. The sermon works through three exegetical questions: the identity of the disciples Paul encounters (argued to be genuine Christian believers, not pre-Christian inquirers), the relationship between John's baptism and Christian baptism (argued to be one and the same ordinance), and the significance of the Spirit's coming with tongues and prophecy (argued to be a salvation-historical confirmation of Pentecost's fulfillment, not a normative pattern for all believers). The exposition concludes by drawing out Paul's ministry at the school of Tyrannus as a model of bold, reasoned, expositional gospel preaching that God uses to spread the word across an entire province.
The Lord's Instruction on Prayer
Matthew 6:5–13 contains Jesus' instruction on three aspects of prayer that the disciples must get right: the motivation that drives them to the closet, the manner they adopt when they arrive, and the model that frames their petitions. The sermon works through each in turn, contrasting godly prayer with the exhibitionism of the hypocrite and the manipulative vain repetition of the heathen — illustrated at length from the contest on Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18. It closes with eight reasons why the sovereignty of God, far from making prayer unnecessary, is the very ground on which the believer brings every petition in faith.
The Ministry of Apollos
Acts 18:24–28 introduces Apollos of Alexandria as a case study in what faithful gospel ministry requires. Six marks characterize this man — eloquence grounded in scriptural mastery, accurate instruction in the way of the Lord, fervency of spirit governed by knowledge, precise teaching, bold proclamation, and humble openness to correction — and these same marks should shape the church's prayers for and training of men for public ministry. Luke's phrase 'believed through grace' discloses the ordo salutis: saving faith is itself the gift of God's sovereign grace to dead sinners. The sermon closes by pressing both the need for trained, bold preachers and the equally urgent need for obedient hearers, applying the gospel of justification by faith alone to any who have not yet come to Christ.
Psalm 46
Psalm 46 presents God as the impenetrable refuge and omnipotent strength of His people in the midst of natural catastrophe, national upheaval, and personal affliction. The study works through four heads: the assurance of God's presence (vv. 1, 7, 11), the demonstration of God's power (vv. 2–6), the invitation to behold God's works (vv. 8–9), and the command to rest in God's sovereignty (v. 10). Covenant theology is not merely a theoretical construct but the very ground of the believer's comfort — the God of Jacob is a covenant-keeping God whose purposes cannot be frustrated by any earthly power. The congregation is called to the practical discipline of theology proper: to know God deeply so that the soul is stabilized, not paralyzed, in times of trouble.
Exodus 1
Exodus 1 traces the rapid shift from Israel's prosperity under Joseph to their brutal subjugation under a new Pharaoh who knew nothing of the covenant arrangement his predecessors had honored. The chapter moves in two broad movements: the origin of the oppression in the multiplication of Israel, which paradoxically fulfilled God's Abrahamic promise of seed and land, and the gravity of that oppression as Pharaoh escalated from forced labor to state-sponsored infanticide. The defiance of the Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah, grounded in the fear of God rather than the fear of man, illustrates the Reformed conviction that civil obedience finds its limit where God's law begins. The sermon closes by drawing three contemporary applications: vigilance against the gradual escalation of tyranny, confidence in the sovereign providence of God who keeps his covenant promises even through suffering, and the call to Spirit-wrought courage that refuses to silently deny Christ.
The Rejection of Heretics
Titus 3:9–15 closes Paul's letter to Titus with a sharp command to avoid unprofitable disputes and to reject the divisive man — a command the broader pastoral epistles and the apostolic witness consistently reinforce. The sermon distinguishes heresy from damnable heresy, identifying denial of the Trinity, the hypostatic union, and justification by faith alone as the errors that condemn, while pressing the church not to confuse the struggling saint with the proud, self-serving false teacher. Church discipline for doctrinal error is treated with the same gravity as discipline for moral sin, and the concluding emphasis on good works is grounded in the confession that such works are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith, not the grounds of justification.
The Second Missionary Journey, Part 7
Paul's sermon at the Areopagus (Acts 17:22–34) confronts Athenian idolatry by grounding the Christian worldview in the doctrines of creation, providence, and judgment. He establishes the Creator-creature distinction against both Epicurean deism and Stoic pantheism, exposes the guilt of all men through natural revelation and their own poets, and calls all men everywhere to repentance because God has appointed both a day of judgment and its judge — the resurrected Christ. The sermon closes by applying the abiding prohibition of idolatry from the Decalogue to contemporary life, pressing hearers toward faith in Christ as the only corrective to the idolatry that already invites God's temporal and eternal judgment.
The Appearance of the Love of God
Titus 3:4–8 sets the merciful act of divine salvation against the backdrop of human depravity, and this exposition works through that contrast under three heads: the appearance of God's love in verse 4, the application of God's grace in verses 5–7, and the affirmation of God's word in verse 8. The passage is shown to teach that salvation originates entirely in God's kindness and mercy — not in works done before or after conversion — applied through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, and sealed by justification by grace through faith. The sermon closes by pressing the pastoral logic of verse 8: it is precisely the constant preaching of justification by grace, not moralistic exhortation, that empowers the life of good works among God's people.
Genesis 50
Genesis 50 closes the book of Genesis with the deaths of Jacob and Joseph, and with Joseph's brothers at last seeking the forgiveness they had long withheld. The sermon traces three movements in the chapter — Jacob's burial in Canaan, the reassurance Joseph gives his fearful brothers, and Joseph's dying charge to carry his bones out of Egypt — and shows how each movement is anchored in the covenant faithfulness of God. Central to the exposition is Genesis 50:20, treated as the Old Testament counterpart to Romans 8:28: God overrules the wickedness of men not despite His goodness and omnipotence but because of them, working all things toward His glory and the good of His people. Hearers are called to confess sin honestly, forgive as they have been forgiven, and rest in the God whose promises — from Genesis 3:15 to the exodus and beyond — never fail.
The Christian's Duty toward Non-Christians
Titus 3:1–3 sets out the Christian's duty toward both civil government and all people outside the church. The sermon traces the divine origin of civil government from Genesis 9 through Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2, arguing from Francis Turretin's two-kingdom framework that Christ rules both the civil and spiritual spheres, and that the civil state therefore has no authority to command the church as church. Verse 3's catalogue of pre-conversion vices — foolishness, disobedience, malice, hatred — is read as a theological reason for patient, peaceable, and humble conduct toward non-Christians: believers were once exactly what they now struggle to bear in others, and those others may yet become objects of the same sovereign grace.
Genesis 49
Genesis 49 presents Jacob's deathbed blessings and prophetic declarations over each of the twelve tribes of Israel, reaching its theological apex in the Shiloh prophecy of verses 8–12, which identifies the tribe of Judah as the royal line from which Messiah will come. The scepter's promised continuity in Judah until 'Shiloh comes' is shown to anticipate not only David's dynasty but the obedience of all peoples — Jew and Gentile — to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Jacob's closing instructions concerning his burial in the cave of Machpelah reaffirm Israel's legal title to the promised land and underscore that Egypt is only a sojourn, not a destiny. The chapter closes with a call to confidence in God grounded in a lifetime of witnessed divine faithfulness, expressed in Jacob's peaceful death and his declaration, 'I have waited for your salvation, O Lord.'
The Manifestation of God's Grace
Titus 2:11–15 presents God's grace not merely as the ground of salvation but as the very teacher of holy living. This exposition traces four aspects of grace in the passage: its appearance in the incarnation and atoning work of Christ, its instruction toward denial of ungodliness and worldly lusts and pursuit of sober, righteous, and godly life, its demonstration in the deity of the returning Christ and the definite redemption he accomplished, and its proclamation through authoritative gospel ministry. The controlling hermeneutical key is the grammatical and theological priority of the indicative over the imperative: believers obey not in order to be saved but because they have been saved, and inverting that order collapses the gospel into moralism.
The Second Missionary Journey, Part 5
Acts 17:10–15 records the ministry and departure of Paul and Silas at Berea, where the Jewish hearers were commended as 'more noble-minded' than those in Thessalonica because they received the word with readiness and examined the Scriptures daily to verify Paul's proclamation of Jesus as the Christ. The sermon expounds three movements in the text — the perseverance of the missionaries, the tenacity of unbelieving opposition, and the noble-mindedness of the Bereans — and draws sustained application from Nehemiah 8 and the parable of the sower in Luke 8 on the right reception of God's word. The Berean example is pressed as a standing model for the church: Scripture is sufficient and self-evidencing, and the truth has nothing to hide and everything to gain by investigation. Hearers are exhorted to come to the word with expectancy, attentiveness, reverence, and responsiveness, since faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
Genesis 48:1-22
Genesis 48 records Jacob's adoption of Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, as tribal heads within Israel, and his deliberate bestowal of the greater blessing on the younger Ephraim — a pattern running throughout Genesis that the covenant blessings are dispensed not by birth order but by sovereign divine election. The chapter's vocabulary of "firstborn" is examined in light of Colossians 1:15, demonstrating that the term denotes preeminence rather than creaturely origin, directly refuting the Arian Christology of Jehovah's Witnesses. Jacob's deathbed testimony — praising God who fed him all his life and whose Angel redeemed him from all evil — is held up as a model for how the people of God should rehearse divine faithfulness at the close of life.
The Second Missionary Journey, Part 2
Acts 16:6–15 traces the divine hand behind the second missionary journey's westward turn into Macedonia and the conversion of Lydia in Philippi. The Spirit's successive prohibitions of ministry in Asia and Bithynia are not judgments on those regions but demonstrations that God actively directs the missionary enterprise according to his sovereign purpose. The conversion of Lydia — a woman whose heart was dead in trespasses until God opened it to receive Paul's preaching — illustrates that the efficient cause of every conversion is divine grace, not human ingenuity, while the instrumentality of gospel proclamation and the responsibility of hearers to believe remain fully intact. The sermon calls the church to define missionary work precisely as the Spirit-sent, church-commissioned preaching of Christ crucified, rejecting both Arminian confidence in the sinner's free will and hyper-Calvinist reluctance to call sinners to faith.
The Second Missionary Journey, Part 1
Acts 15:36–16:5 records the opening of Paul's second missionary journey — beginning with a sharp contention between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark, continuing through Paul's recruitment and circumcision of Timothy in Lystra, and concluding with a summary report of churches strengthened and growing daily. The sermon argues that God's sovereign providence overruled the division between two godly men to send out two missionary teams, and that Timothy's circumcision was a strategic pastoral act entirely consistent with Paul's settled rejection of Judaizing. Throughout, the exposition presses the congregation toward a recovery of faithful, word-centered ministry as the only legitimate means of church growth and stability.
The Appointment of Elders
Titus 1:5–9 gives the apostolic mandate for appointing elders in every city, a task Paul left Titus to complete on the young and unstructured island churches of Crete. The sermon works through two main divisions: the purpose of Titus's ministry as setting things in order (v. 5), and the qualifications for elders in terms of domestic faithfulness, personal faithfulness, and the gift of sound teaching (vv. 6–9). Elders are not essential to the existence of a church but are essential to its well-being, and their appointment must involve the common suffrage of the congregation under the direction of existing leadership. The sermon closes with a call to pray for a plurality of qualified elders, to enforce the qualifications without compromise, and to trust in a willing Savior who gathers a great multitude from every nation.
The Introduction to the Book of Titus
Titus 1:1–4 contains one of Paul's longer epistolary introductions, and the reason is pastoral and strategic: Paul is authenticating the ministry of Titus among a difficult, newly-planted congregation on Crete by anchoring his own apostolic authority in the eternal decree of God. The sermon surveys the historical and biographical background of the pastoral epistles before working through Paul's self-designation as bondservant and apostle, his two-fold apostolic purpose (the salvation and sanctification of God's elect), and the grounding of that purpose in the covenant of redemption purposed before time began. The greeting's triad of grace, mercy, and peace — flowing from both God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, each called 'Savior' — opens a rich vein of covenant theology, Christology, and soteriology that will run through the entire book.
The Empty Tomb and the Risen Lord
The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is not a cunningly devised fable but a historically attested and theologically necessary event that vindicates Christ's person and work. Expounding Matthew 28:1–10, this sermon examines the discovery of the empty tomb — the descent of the angel, the commission to the women, and the flight of the guards — and then the appearance of the risen Lord to the women, who held him by the feet and worshipped him. The hypostatic union underlies that act of worship: they touch his human feet while adoring the second person of the Trinity. Because Christ is risen, believers need not fear, have an advocate with the Father when they sin, and possess a hope that is grounded in historical reality and not mere sentiment.
The Council at Jerusalem, Part 3
James closes the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:13–21) by grounding the inclusion of Gentiles in the covenant people of God not in human experience alone but in the prophetic word of Amos 9:11–12 and in the eternal decree of God. The rebuilding of David's tabernacle is the spiritual kingdom of Christ, which was purposed in eternity, announced through the prophets, and executed in the crosswork and exaltation of the Son. From this doctrinal foundation James renders a definitive verdict against Judaizing — that justification is by faith alone, apart from circumcision or the ceremonies of Moses — and then offers practical accommodations to facilitate communion between Jewish and Gentile believers in the one new humanity Christ has made.
The Council at Jerusalem, Part 2
The Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 confronts the Judaizing error that Gentile salvation requires circumcision and law-keeping in addition to faith in Christ. Drawing on Peter's testimony in Acts 15:6–12 and its grounding in the Cornelius episode of Acts 10, the sermon argues that God himself made no distinction between Jew and Gentile, purifying hearts by faith alone — making any human addition to the gospel a direct testing of God. Faith is shown to be the empty hand that receives Christ's righteousness, not a virtue that earns it, and the church is called to guard the law-free gospel against every cultural or ecclesiastical supplement that would corrupt it.
The Council at Jerusalem, Part 1
Acts 15:1–5 introduces the Jerusalem Council by presenting the Judaizing heresy in its starkest form: certain men from Judea taught that circumcision must be added to faith in Christ for salvation, striking simultaneously at the law's proper use and at the sufficiency of Christ's finished work. The passage is set in its chronological context, distinguishing the events of Galatians 2 from the council itself, and showing that the problem was not merely one of Jewish-Gentile social relations but a soteriological crisis with eternal consequences. Paul and Barnabas respond with uncompromising confrontation, the church at Antioch sends delegates to Jerusalem, and the passage closes with the same Judaizing demand surfacing within the Jerusalem church — demonstrating the universality and perpetuity of the tendency to add human merit to sovereign grace. The exhortation is to resist every form of works-righteousness and to preach the law and gospel in their proper distinction, so that sinners are directed to Christ alone.
The Ninth Commandment
The Ninth Commandment—'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor' (Deuteronomy 5:20)—extends far beyond courtroom perjury to govern every word spoken about another person. This sermon works through the prohibition in two directions: first, the specific offenses the commandment forbids (perjury, lying, slander, gossip, and tailbearing, including both their active propagation and their passive reception); second, the positive duties the commandment requires (truth-telling under oath, honest speech in all of life, charitable restraint, and the active discouragement of slanderers). Because no hearer perfectly fulfils Psalm 15's portrait of the righteous man, the sermon closes by directing the conscience to Christ, whose active obedience and atoning death cover the very sins of the tongue that the law condemns.
The Qualifications for Elders, Part 2
What does Scripture require of a man before a church installs him as an elder? Expounding 1 Timothy 3:1–7 alongside Titus 1:5–9, this sermon completes a two-part treatment of the biblical qualifications for elders, focusing on the elder's maturity in the faith, his good testimony before outsiders, and his indispensable ability to teach. The danger of rushing a novice into office is pressed from multiple angles — pride, the church's welfare, and the man's own protection — before the sermon closes with practical exhortations to the congregation on praying for, identifying, examining, and where necessary excluding candidates for eldership.
Genesis 46 - 47
Genesis 46–47 records Israel's third journey to Egypt — not to purchase grain but to relocate permanently — and expounds the providence of God working through famine, family reunion, and political administration to preserve the covenant people. The sermon traces three movements: God's visionary reassurance to Jacob at Beersheba, the family's reception by Joseph and Pharaoh, and Joseph's administration of the famine alongside the settlement of Israel in Goshen. Throughout, the seed promise and land promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are shown advancing even in exile, setting the stage for the exodus yet to come.
The Qualifications for Elders (Part 1)
What qualifies a man to serve as an elder in the church of Jesus Christ? Expounding 1 Timothy 3:1–7 as an excursus from a series through Acts, this sermon establishes that the New Testament uses 'elder,' 'overseer,' and 'pastor' as synonymous titles for one office, and then works through five of the six qualifications Paul sets out for that office: the man's desire, his personal holiness, and his domestic faithfulness. The sermon is equally concerned with what these qualifications are not — they are not a standard of sinless perfection, nor a popularity contest, nor a direct transfer of worldly competence — and applies the passage by urging the church to vet candidates by Scripture alone, not by affection or likability.
The Institution of the Lord's Supper
Matthew 26:26–30 records the institution of the Lord's Supper by Christ on the night of Passover, and this sermon works through that text to establish the supper's setting, its elements, and its eschatological horizon. The bread and cup are not transformed in substance — transubstantiation is explicitly repudiated as repugnant to Scripture, reason, and the 1689 confession — but are consecrated from common use to signify Christ's broken body and shed blood. The blood of the new covenant is shed 'for many,' not all without exception, anchoring the supper in the doctrine of particular redemption and the forgiveness of sins as the chief covenantal benefit. Believers are exhorted to receive the supper not as a reward for good behavior but as a means of grace by which God strengthens, fortifies, and confirms the faith of His pilgrim people.
Genesis 44-45
Genesis 44–45 presents the arrest of Joseph's brothers, Judah's substitutionary intercession for Benjamin, and Joseph's dramatic self-disclosure — all framed by a fourfold emphasis on the providence of God. The separation between chapters 44 and 45 artificially interrupts what is one of the most theologically dense scenes in the entire Pentateuch: Judah, the man who once sold Joseph into slavery, now offers himself as a slave in Benjamin's place, functioning as a type of Christ. Joseph's forgiveness of his brothers flows directly from his theological grasp of divine sovereignty, demonstrating that a right understanding of providence is the engine of genuine forgiveness. The sermon closes with the typological significance of both Judah and Joseph as portraits of the Lord Jesus Christ embedded in the redemptive narrative of Scripture.