Calvin on Enjoying Life 

God gave us wine when we could have done with just water

During his life, John Calvin was an industrious worker. Calvin learned Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, wrote the first Systemic Theology book of the Reformation, and corresponded with people all over the world by writing over a thousand letters. He also wrote verse-by-verse commentaries on 54 of the 66 books of the bible. He pastored a church that hated him and started schools in the city of Geneva. He also had poor health and suffered from sickness and physical pain for much of his life.

Yet Calvin was still able to understand the value of rest. He believed that enjoyment was a part of God’s plan for human life. He often said that God gave us wine when we could have done with just water. 

Biographer Herman J Selderhuis says of Calvin, “He still thought, though, that life could be enjoyed. Neither should one’s enjoyment of life be too constricted, because enjoyment was a part of Christian freedom. The conscience should not be needlessly worked up, “for when the conscience has once let itself be entrapped, it enters into a long convoluted maze.” What Calvin says about the trap into which the conscience can fall is best related in his own words: 

‘When you begin to doubt whether you may use linen for sheets, shirts, handkerchiefs and tablecloths, you will therefore not be sure whether you can use hemp. And then you will also have doubts about using flax. You will consider whether you could do without a tablecloth at dinner, and whether handkerchiefs are really necessary. If you suppose that you may not permit yourself nicer meal, in the end you will not eat normal bread or an ordinary dinner with a clear conscience before God when you realize that even more simple nourishment would do for your body. When you doubt whether or not you may drink a fine wine, you will soon no longer be able to drink even a flat wine with a peaceful conscience, and in the end not dare to touch any water that is sweeter or better than others. Finally, things will go so far that you think it sinful to step over a straw that blocks your path.’”