A Reader’s Guide to Calvin’s Institutes

Written by Anthony N. S. Lane Reviewed By Hans Madueme

In the midst of the much anticipated 500th anniversary of Calvin’s birth, this little book is well timed. Lane is a historical theologian at the London School of Theology and already established as a first-rate Calvin scholar. But this is a different, more intentionally pedagogical book. Its aim is to help the reader benefit from Calvin’s Institutes. Specifically, the guide is written for the McNeill-Battles translation; while other translations can be used, “a significant amount of material would no longer be relevant” (p. 9). The book is to be read with the Institutes, not as a standalone volume. Structurally, there are thirty-two chapters; each one assigns about eighteen pages from each of the thirty-two portions of the Institutes, with emphasis on Calvin’s “positive theology” over the polemical and historical sections. Lane then offers his own annotations to those readings with occasional commentary on important footnotes in the McNeill-Battles edition. These notes help the reader as he or she works through Calvin’s text. In addition to all this, the book opens with a biographical survey of Calvin’s life, a list of the many editions of the Institutes, and an informed discussion of the main purpose and structure of the Institutes. In short, here is an excellent hermeneutical guide to Calvin’s Institutes. College and seminary students and general readers new to Calvin will profit most from this book. Their gratitude is that of the Ethiopian eunuch as Lane takes them more fully into the rich meaning of Calvin’s text.


Hans Madueme

Hans Madueme is associate professor of theological studies at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia.

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