Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper [Paperback]

Keith A. Mathison (Author), R. C. Sproul (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2002

The primary purpose of this book is to introduce, explain, and defend a particular doctrine of the Lord’s Supper — the doctrine taught by John Calvin and most of the sixteenth-century Reformed confessions.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 370 pages
• Publisher: P & R Publishing (October 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 087552186X
• ISBN-13: 978-0875521862
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #797,061 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Recommended but..., March 25, 2005

By 

Classical Mom (The Left Coast) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper (Paperback)

Keith Mathison does an excellent job of conveying the history and meaning behind the Reformed view of the Lord's Supper. In an era when Christians seem to think the religion was founded at their conversion this book gives an excellent overview of our heritage. Mathison also delves into the reason why most confessional churches have dropped the weekly observance of this very important Sacrament.

I do have one very serious problem with the book however and that is why I gave it only three stars. In the first chapter Mathison quotes prolifically from Calvin's Institutes, book 4, chapters 14 & 17, to lay down the foundation for his argument. Unfortunately he makes it sound as if Calvin believed that absolutely NOTHING happens to the unbelieving heathen who partakes despite the warnings not to. This is not what Calvin believed at all as is evidenced from the very chapters Mathison quoted so freely from.

I will use two sections here for brevity's sake and advise you to read Calvin's Institutes along with the book.

1)Mathison quotes from 4.14.7 to prove that the Supper is only "effective" to the one who takes it with a believing heart. But Calvin does state in that section that "The wicked incur a heavier condemnation [for partaking]"

2)Two pages later he quotes Calvin's quote of Augustine, "In the elect alone the sacraments effect what they represent." He fails to quote further where Augustine is quoted as saying, "...the Lord's morsel was poison to Judas, not because he received evil, but because and evil man evilly received a good thing."

There are several more omissions that I encourage readers to look up. It is due to these omissions that the common American reader (who probably does not own a copy of the Institutes let alone have read it) might agree with Mathison's conclusion about paedo-communion. His reasoning is disturbing. Toward the end of his argument for paedo-communion he begins to sound as if he believes that our children's baptism is an agent of their salvation and, if pushed, he might actually come down on the side of those who believe in baptismal regeneration. He argues that we cannot bar from the table any who have been baptized. He sets up a straw-man argument when he compares the barring of infants and children from the table to the barring of elderly senile folks. This is ludicrous. Any pastor who knows his constituents will know whether they had previously shown signs of faith. What we are waiting for in our children are those signs of faith.

I do not speak as one who has never wrestled with this. I have three young boys and, as a mother, I must say the idea of paedo-communion is very appealing. I know what communion effects. I know that my children are in need of what it effects. But as a mother who knows her children AND who has a firm belief in the historical Reformed & Presbyterian view of communion, I cannot in good conscience subject my children to possibly more wrath on the off-chance that they are not saved.

Not all Israel is Israel. God loved Jacob but despised Esau. Yet they were both circumcised...the sign & seal for which baptism is now the replacement.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you only buy one book on the Supper...., October 24, 2004

By 

Kathy F. Cannata "Rev. Dr. R. Cannata" (New Orleans, LA United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper (Paperback)

Mathison's Given For You on Calvin's view of the Supper is a must have. Not overly profound; reads kind of like a really, really good, long seminary paper, and occasionally cliched. But about as good of an overview as I've seen. Lots of nice, clearly outlined, short sub-chapters. Makes a good argument for wine in the Meal and even for paedo-communion. The part on Nevin is especially good. He also shows there were important differences on the meal between fellow Princeton theologians (as well as between fellow Scottish theologians, Southern, etc.). Because he wrote a book on postmillennialism I had avoided this one for some time, but I'm glad I gave him a chance.

Three other books to consider: NT Wright's The Meal Jesus Gave Us; Peter Leithart's Blessed are the Hungry; and Robert Letham's one (Letham gives a counter-balance to Mathison on the Paedo-communion stuff).

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great historical theological look at the Lord's Supper, July 1, 2004

By 

Ian H. Clary (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper (Paperback)

I bought this book an a whim and was very glad that I did. Mathison has done contemporary Christianity a service buy publishing this work.
He gives the reader a solid background in the issues concerning the Reformation debate on the Eucharist. In it, I believe, he vindicates the three major players - Luther, Zwingli and Calvin - explaining how Calvin wasn't as far from Luther and how Zwingli eventually came over the Calvin's position. Thus almost unifying the magesterial reformers on such an important reformational topic.
Mathison also gives us a masterful look at post-reformation thought on the issue, citing all of the major confessions and catechisms from the Reformation to today - as well as looking at major theologians throughout church history.
The one drawback was his treatment of Jonathan Edwards - which is understandable considering the only published sermons of Edwards on the Supper make him appear Zwingliian. However there are a series of unpublished sermons on the Lord's Supper that clearly prove that Edwards was a Calvinist when it came to this means of grace. There is an excellent article in Pro Ecclesia - A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology (Vol. vii - No. 3 - Summer 98) by William J. Danaher, Jr. that exposes Edwards for the Calvinist that he is.
Also, it would be nice in a subsequent edition if Mathison would highlight the view of the early Particular Baptists which was undoubtedly Calvinistic - as opposed to some of the later one's who developed a memorialist view.
Mathison's exegesis of Old and New Testament texts enlighten the reader to see how Biblical Calvin's view is. We would do well to harken to Mathison's exhortation to return to this rich view of the Supper.