John Calvin (1509–1564) was a French theologian who became the leading figure of the Reformation in Geneva. Trained in law and humanist scholarship, he published the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion in 1536, at twenty-six, and spent his life preaching, lecturing, and organizing the Genevan church. His commentaries on nearly the whole Bible and the final 1559 Institutes anchor our Reformed collection.
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John Calvin's commentaries on the pastoral epistles and Philemon, in Henry Beveridge's English translation. Calvin instructs ministers through Paul's letters to Timothy and Titus: guard the gospel, order the church, appoint faithful elders, and endure hardship. His brief exposition of Philemon, Paul's appeal for a runaway slave, shows the same pastoral wisdom applied to a single household.