I've been working on a modern-language translation of John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. Calvin wrote the Institutes so ordinary Christians could understand what the Bible teaches. Over the centuries the book has become something people admire from a distance but seldom finish. The length is part of the problem, and so is the sixteenth-century prose. Calvin's sentences are long, and they don't read easily to a modern reader.
The aim is to make the text accessible without watering it down. I want to keep Calvin's arguments, his structure and his pastoral warmth, and to put them in language you could read on a train or in your lunch break.
Where it stands
Book One (the knowledge of God the Creator): complete
Book Two (the knowledge of God the Redeemer in Christ): complete
Book Three (how we receive the grace of Christ): partly done, with more to come
Book Four (the external means by which God draws us into Christ): complete
Each book can be read online or downloaded as a PDF. There is also a short summary for each book, and a summary of all four together, for anyone who wants the shape of the argument before taking on the whole thing. If you'd rather listen, Books One and Two are available as audiobooks through ElevenReader.
Calvin's own purpose was to give readers a key to Scripture and a guide to what they would find there. I hope this version helps people use it that way.
You can find it all on the John Calvin page. If you spot a clumsy phrase or something that reads wrongly, I'd be glad to hear about it.