In my early 20’s, I worked for a Jewish businessman who knew I was a Christian interested in history. He was also sensitive to Protestant history because Protestant families had protected Jews in their homes during World War II. One day he invited me into his home and gave me a Bible printed in 1638. This Bible included a printing of the French Confession of Faith, unlike most Bibles from that era.
Years later, in the first church that I pastored, a history professor in attendance saw this Bible and called me over to him. He pointed to a signature on the bottom of the last page of the confession.
“Samy, do you know what this means?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” I said.
“It means this Bible was given in the seventeenth century to a young pastor named Jacques Lafon, who signed it to say ‘I commit myself to preach faithfully according to the gospel and the confession of faith,” he said, “You would not find this in any museum. Where did you get this Bible?”
I told him the story, and by God’s providence, the Bible has returned to the place where the confession was written, very close to where we are planting a church in an old theatre on the Rue de Nesle in the Latin Quarter of Paris. And it turns out, the vision of our church is to plant in a neighborhood with deep roots in the Reformation and to connect the people around us to this vision. Read more
See also
The French Confession of Faith (1559)
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