The Institutes is an extended hymn of praise by an exiled Frenchman to a saving God he believed never abandoned the faithful. It was deeply personal. Faith, Calvin writes, is to know that God is Father (Bruce Gordon, John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion: A Biography, 12).

Calvin would have hated the designation of his Institutes as a book of academic theology. That was precisely what it was not. Above all, his creation was a structured exposition of the biblical account of divinity and humanity, of what Christians should know and how they should live. . . . The Institutes was a book to be lived (Bruce Gordon, John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion: A Biography, xiii).

Materialism is part of a larger pursuit, not merely of the idols that material possessions may become but of the idol of acceptance. At the deepest levels of our hearts, we want more than simply stuff. We want people to accept us, and one of the ways we sometimes imagine that we will achieve acceptance is by having lots of things: an impressive resume, beauty, fame, or power (Alan D. Strange, Imputation of the Active Obedience of Chrsit in the Westminster Standards, xv).

Christ’s death indeed removes the debt of sin, but it is His active obedience accounted (or imputed) to us that gives us the perfect righteousness we need. We have a need not only for our sin to be paid for but also for the law to be kept for us positively (Alan D. Strange, Imputation of the Active Obedience of Christ in the Westminster Standards, xi).

And after Eve was deceived of the serpent, God said unto her (Genesis 3), thy lust or appetite shall pertain unto thy husband and he shall rule thee or reign over thee. God which created the woman knoweth what is in that weak vessel (as Peter calleth her) and hath therefore put her under the obedience of her husband to rule her lusts and wanton appetites. Peter (1 Peter 3) exhorteth wives to be in subjection unto their husbands, after the example of the holy women which in old time trusted in God, and as Sara obeyed Abraham and called him lord. Which Sara before she was married, was Abraham’s sister and equal with him: but as soon as she was *married was in subjection and became without comparison inferior. For so is the nature of wedlock by the ordinance of God. . . . Paul (Ephesians 5) saith: women submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the wife’s head even as Christ is head of the congregation. Therefore as the congregation is in subjection to Christ, likewise let wives be in subjection unto their husbands in all things. Let the woman therefore fear her husband, as Paul saith in the said place. For her husband is unto her in the stead of God, that she obey him and wait on his commandments. And his commandments are God’s commandments. **If she therefore grudge [grumble, complain] against him or resist him she grudgeth against God and resisteth God.

* Marriage altereth the degree of nature.

** The husband is to the wife in God’s stead.

(William Tyndale, The Obedience of a Christian Man, 34).

[Note: some spelling and punctuation I have modernized.] The subjection of the woman to her husband was not repugnant to the state of Innocence; but then as the authority of the man would have been used with justice and kindness, so the obedience of the woman would have been pleasant and cheerful; whereas now for holding a conspiracy with Satan, and abusing her familiarity with her husband, she was like to find less comfort tin her communion with him; for by sin conjugal kindness is turned to austerity, justice to injury, willing obedience to reluctance and frowardness; and so the yoke which would always have been sweet and easy, becometh many times (especially if any be unequally yoked in respect to their conditions) hard and bitter to be born; yet born it must be, 1 Cor. 14:3 4; Tit. 2.5; 1 Pet. 3:6 (Comments on Genesis 3:16 in Annotations upon all the books of the Old and New Testament. London: John Legatt and John Raworth (1645)).

A couple notes: Tyndale makes astute observation that marriage alters the degree of nature. Annotations highlight that obedience of wives unto their husbands (in marriage) has its basis in original creational order, pre-fall condition.

The first and most immediate observation is that, indeed, we have an impressive number of texts attested in these very early manuscripts. Though nearly all are only portions, and in many cases mere fragments, of the full manuscripts, enough survives to tell us that collectively early Christians produced, copied, and read a noteworthy range of writings. With all due allowances for the limitation sin the likely extent of literacy in this period, the impression given is that early Christianity represented a religious movement in which texts played a large role. But we may be able to probe a bit farther. Even if we must be somewhat cautious in drawing our inferences, these data invite intriguing questions. It is a further reason for caution, that only about 1% of the estimated 500,000 manuscripts from this period have been published [underline added] (Larry W. Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins, 24-25).

With all due appreciation for the richness and diversity of the current state of New Testament studies, however, in one respect we are in what I regard as quite a regrettable situation for a field that is traditionally characterized by textual scholarship. Though texts are central to our work in the field, we too often engage them at considerable remove from their historical and physical manifestation as manuscripts. Indeed, even the variant readings of early manuscripts of the New Testament are often inadequately considered. Instead, scholars, including those who avowedly pursue historical questions about early Christianity, often treat the text of a printed edition of the Greek New Testament as all they need to consider. Further, if the truth be admitted, many New Testament specialists today and, still more worrying for the future of the field, many or most of those of recent vintage, can barely navigate the critical apparatus of a modern printed edition of the Greek New Testament, such as Nestle-Aland. So scholars sometimes do not adequately engage questions of textual variation in doing their exegesis of the New Testament.

In part, this also reflects the decline in the fortunes of New Testament textual criticism in the latter half of the twentieth century, particularly in English-speaking countries. Indeed, in the late 1970s a leading scholar in the discipline, Eldon Epp, went so far as to warn starkly that new Testament textual criticism was perhaps at the point of its demise in English-speaking settings, especially in North America, styling his essay as a putative “requiem” for the discipline.

Since Epp’s somber jeremiad appeared in 1979, however, in some respects things have started looking a bit better. (Larry W. Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins, 8-9).

Because we be blind, God hath appointed in the scripture how we should serve him and please him. As pertaining to his own person he is abundantly pleased when we believe his promises and holy testament which he hath made unto us in Christ, and for mercy which he there showed us, love his commandments (William Tyndale, The Obedience of a Christian Man, 181).

[T]he church’s identity is tied directly to Jesus’s identity. Confuse the one and you confuse the other (Barry J. York, Hitting the Marks, 5).

The leaders of the Protestant Reformation consistently taught that the marks of the church are:

* the faithful preaching and hearing of God’s Word,

* the rightful administration of the sacraments, and

* the proper exercise of church discipline.

Why did they identify these marks as necessary? Because, as we are going to see, these identifications are what the Founder of the church himself stated were the marks of the church, showing that she belongs to him. Since Christ built the church, he alone can tell us how we are to recognize it. He has the right to tell us how false forms of the church are to be distinguished. We have marks for the church because we have a Marker. Christ has stamped the church in his image and with his own unique identity (Barry J. York, Hitting the Marks, 3).