How They Found Christ: In Their Own Words

by John Calvin, Andrew Murray

Have you ever searched for a book that compiles under one cover the personal salvation testimonies of many of God's well-known servants? "How They Found Christ" is such a book. It presents "in their own words" how the saving grace of God came to Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Bunyan, Madame Guyon, Wesley, Andrew Murray, Hannah W. Smith, Hudson Taylor, Spurgeon, A.B. Simpson, and Watchman Nee. You will find this book to be not only an excellent tool for sharing the Gospel, but also a source full of inspiration and revelation for all Christians.

205 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

French-Swiss theologian John Calvin broke with the Roman Catholic Church in 1533 and as Protestant set forth his tenets, known today, in Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536).

The religious doctrines of John Calvin emphasize the omnipotence of God, whose grace alone saves the elect.

* Jehan Cauvin
* Iohannes Calvinus (Latin)
* Jean Calvin (French)

Originally trained as a humanist lawyer around 1530, he went on to serve as a principal figure in the Reformation. He developed the system later called Calvinism.

After tensions provoked a violent uprising, Calvin fled to Basel and published the first edition of his seminal work. In that year of 1536, William Farel invited Calvin to help reform in Geneva. The city council resisted the implementation of ideas of Calvin and Farel and expelled both men. At the invitation of Martin Bucer, Calvin proceeded to Strasbourg as the minister of refugees. He continued to support the reform movement in Geneva, and people eventually invited him back to lead. Following return, he introduced new forms of government and liturgy. Following an influx of supportive refugees, new elections to the city council forced out opponents of Calvin. Calvin spent his final years, promoting the Reformation in Geneva and throughout Europe.

Calvin tirelessly wrote polemics and apologia. He also exchanged cordial and supportive letters with many reformers, including Philipp Melanchthon and Heinrich Bullinger. In addition, he wrote commentaries on most books of the Bible as well as treatises and confessional documents and regularly gave sermons throughout the week in Geneva. The Augustinian tradition influenced and led Calvin to expound the doctrine of predestination and the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation.

Calvin's writing and preaching provided the seeds for the branch of Protestantism that bears his name. His views live on chiefly in Presbyterian and Reformed denominations, which have spread throughout the world. Calvin's thought exerted considerable influence over major figures and entire movements, such as Puritanism, and some scholars argue that his ideas contributed to the rise of capitalism, individualism, and representative democracy in the west.

Reviews

[RevRonR · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, How They Found Christ in Their Own Words, is really a simple treasure! It’s very readable, understandable, yet does an excellent job in focusing in on the conversion experiences of numerous famous Christians, real Christians, from yesteryear. And these were real Christians, with real life change and real impact on the world around them. If you read this book (and I HIGHLY encourage you to), take careful note of exactly how these evangelicals who wrote of their experiences in coming to faith in Christ in the times they lived described it. If you look at each one, you see from Augustine to Watchman Nee, that they often struggled for either a semi-short to much longer measure of time (one for years) to finally find the peace with God that salvation brings. I say this because their experiences hardly match the “conversion” experiences we see or hear about today. I believe evangelicals have lost their way. I’m thankful that highly, highly useful books like this are out there to help redirect our course.

[Ronb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the testimonies were fascinating, some I already knew (Augustine, Luther, Wesley, etc.), while a few were new to me (Calvin and Whitefield). Many well-known historical figures and their beginnings as Christians will interest many.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

The hard part of reading this book is that some of it is written by people who lived long ago and the sentence structure and wording is hard to understand. Other than that it is good to see the struggles that many notable Christians had in coming to salvation.