No one "needs" to read Calvin. Everyone "needs" to read the Bible.
I enjoy reading the U.S. Constitution and believe every word of it.
But I also enjoy reading books about the U.S. Constitution.
Are those books equal to the Constitution? No. Do they amplify and honor the Constitution? Yes.
The Calvinist God is too small. He is a dead God, playing His own part in the eternal scene. Because He would not do anything different than what He has foreordained, He is dead, a mere idol without even a statue, made up of constructs from feeble men’s imaginations, made up to limit God, to control Him, to reassure themselves that they are “elect.”
I prefer the Living God, Who sent His Son that we may have life, and have it more abundantly. The same God Who created the surprise of love and Love, Who actively seeks and finds the lost sheep, and Who rejoice more over finding the one lost than all the others who are safe....
I LOVE the Living God, Who invites but never forces our love in return; the Living God Who assure us that He goes to prepare a place for us, that in His Father’s House are many mansions; Who is Lord of the storm, the snow, the sun, the rain, the flowers, the fertilizer, the Creator of all that is seen and unseen....
Who can put God in a little box, a tortured 18th century box of limits to His Power and Grace? Who can cram Him into a tiny book that holds every important word ever said about Him?
HOGWASH!!!! And I really mean it! God is our Friend, our Lover, our Savior, our Redeemer, our King, our Joy, as exuberant as geese flying north in the spring, as Hilarious as a kitten chasing a butterfly, as gentle as the kiss of a father on the brow of his newborn child—Calvinists! Your God is TOO SMALL!
My God is the God of mountains and caves, of ocean rivers and currents, of the leviathon, of the bacteria, of the atom, of the universe, the God of Time, and the God of Eternity. He can do whatever He wants, and Love is Who He IS.
/rant