Exposition of the Ten Commandments Volume One

"If John Calvin was the consummate dogmatician and the prince of exegetes, Pierre Viret must be considered the finest ethicist and the most acute apologist of the sixteenth century. His strength was a domain often neglected because of its awkwardness: the application of the Word of God to all domains of life. His Exposition of the Ten Commandments is unquestionably the best commentary on the Decalogue that the Christian Church has ever known. Not only do we find here a detailed...
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"If John Calvin was the consummate dogmatician and the prince of exegetes, Pierre Viret must be considered the finest ethicist and the most acute apologist of the sixteenth century. His strength was a domain often neglected because of its awkwardness: the application of the Word of God to all domains of life. His Exposition of the Ten Commandments is unquestionably the best commentary on the Decalogue that the Christian Church has ever known. Not only do we find here a detailed application of God's word to the practical problems of Christian living in every aspect of personal and social life, but this is done with an admirable sense of theological balance and of the delicate relation of dogmatics to ethics, together with the constant, implicit purpose of favoring the preaching of the gospel, of extending God's kingdom, and of bringing all honor and praise to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is high time that we finally begin to grasp the importance of this remarkable thinker, that we make his words available in English, and that we return to his vision of the application of the complete Word of God to all aspects of human life. Without such a return to Biblical reality, we can have no hope for the revival of the Church and for the restoration of its reformational influence over the entirety of culture and society."

-- Jean-Marc Berthoud, author and theologian

Volume One (of the 2-volume set) is an English translation of the first part of Pierre Viret's commentary on the Ten Commandments published originally in French in 1554 under the title Exposition familiere sur les Dix Commandemens de la Loy, faite en forme de Dialogues. It later appeared in a slightly enlarged edition under the title Instruction Chrestienne en la doctrine de la loy et de l'Evangile, printed in Geneva by Jean Rivery (1564). The text of this book has been translated from the 1564 edition.

With the intention of presenting his readers with an easily-understood, down-to-earth exposition of the Ten Commandments, Viret wrote his commentary as a conversation between two fictitious characters, Daniel and Timothy. Within the work Daniel (representative perhaps of the Old Testament prophets) draws out the truths of Scripture for his disciple Timothy (representative of a young believer in the Gospel era). Viret emphasizes the practical applicability of the Law of God, painstakingly applying the truths of each commandment to the everyday lives of his readers and creating a sound, biblical exposition as applicable today as it was the day it was first penned.