Hi, it's Steve Nichols, host of Five Minutes in Church History.

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I hope you enjoy this episode of Five Minutes in Church History.

Words fail to explain how necessary prayer is, and in how many ways the exercise of

prayer is profitable.

It is therefore by the benefit of prayer that we reach those riches which are laid up

for us with the heavenly Father.

These are the words of John Calvin on the necessity of prayer and they come to us from

his institutes.

In Calvin's institutes, he gets at theology through the structure of four books.

The first book is on the knowledge of God, the Creator, and the second book is on the

knowledge of God, the Redeemer in Christ.

When he gets to the third book, Calvin turns his attention to the way in which we receive

the grace of Christ and what benefits come to us from it.

The very beginnings of book three, Calvin talks about the Holy Spirit.

So if book one is about God and book two is about Christ, well book three is about the

Holy Spirit and the Christian life.

Book four then is about the church and life in the spirit and the community of the church.

But back in book three is Calvin's talking about the Christian life.

...