Speaking against Calvin resulted in public discipline and expulsion from city ministry, but if you were on the right side—Calvin’s side—discipline was limited to a stern talking to, and ministry life went on as normal.
In 1560 (the same year the Geneva Bible came out), John Calvin and his fellow church leaders in Geneva wrote to an abused woman who had appealed to them to give her safe haven from her abusive husband.
The woman’s husband was a French nobleman who had powerful allies at the court of the King of France. She wrote to John Calvin’s church in Geneva, Switzerland, asking if they would promise her safe haven if she fled from her husband. They wrote back telling her that she hadn’t done enough or gone to enough lengths to give the gospel to her husband.
Not much has changed. This is just what so many church leaders tell abused wives today!
If you want to read the letter from the French noblewoman, and the letter that Calvin’s church sent her in response, you can find them in Appendix 11 of my book “Not Under Bondage: Biblical Divorce for Abuse, Adultery and Desertion”.
Aaron, this subject material is very much needed, and I appreciate it, since it accords the church to watch and guard ourselves against those things that may be legal, yet violate the natural mode and living out of the natural ordinance of marriage.
This actually is VERY encouraging, brought through by biblical exhortation, and evokes in me a greater love for- and interest in-Calvins work for the church in all ages and cultures, knowing he's merely one of us in need of forgiveness through repentence by His blood as we do in frequent occasion of our own sin, and Exposing works of darkness, even when beloved teachers and leaders are involved in what can be labeled principally as a work not befitting the light we're to walk in faithfully.
In 1560 (the same year the Geneva Bible came out), John Calvin and his fellow church leaders in Geneva wrote to an abused woman who had appealed to them to give her safe haven from her abusive husband.
The woman’s husband was a French nobleman who had powerful allies at the court of the King of France. She wrote to John Calvin’s church in Geneva, Switzerland, asking if they would promise her safe haven if she fled from her husband. They wrote back telling her that she hadn’t done enough or gone to enough lengths to give the gospel to her husband.
Not much has changed. This is just what so many church leaders tell abused wives today!
If you want to read the letter from the French noblewoman, and the letter that Calvin’s church sent her in response, you can find them in Appendix 11 of my book “Not Under Bondage: Biblical Divorce for Abuse, Adultery and Desertion”.
Aaron, this subject material is very much needed, and I appreciate it, since it accords the church to watch and guard ourselves against those things that may be legal, yet violate the natural mode and living out of the natural ordinance of marriage.
This actually is VERY encouraging, brought through by biblical exhortation, and evokes in me a greater love for- and interest in-Calvins work for the church in all ages and cultures, knowing he's merely one of us in need of forgiveness through repentence by His blood as we do in frequent occasion of our own sin, and Exposing works of darkness, even when beloved teachers and leaders are involved in what can be labeled principally as a work not befitting the light we're to walk in faithfully.