All Articles For Bruinsma, Wilbur G

Previous article in this series: March 15, 2015, p. 280. It was in the year 1928 that the Protestant Reformed Churches began to advance toward establishing a “Classical Mission Committee” in order to do the work of missions in this small denomination. In the three previous years, organization of churches was not regulated by the classis (combined consistories), but was left, for the most part, in the capable hands of Rev. H. Hoeksema. By the instigation of Fuller Ave. (First PRC of Grand Rapids), a motion was approved by classis to “work toward performing home mission work,” and to “appoint...

Three faithful ministers of the gospel banded together, forsaken and alone. We can only imagine what the Reverends Herman Hoeksema, Henry Danhof, and George Ophoff felt when the decisions made by Classis Grand Rapids East of the Christian Reformed Church (December 12, 1924) and Classis Grand Rapids West CRC ( January 22, 1925) stripped them of office in the Christian Reformed Church. Out of 247 ministers in the Christian Reformed denomination,1 only these three men with the majority of their elders and congregations had boldly maintained the truth of sovereign, particular grace over against the error of common grace. One...

Good families do not just happen. Many young men and women enter a rela­tionship and even marriage with­out ever giving that a thought. They have these romantic, fairy­tale expectations that they will sim­ply, without any effort, fall in love, marry, have a few children, and live happily ever after. They think that no matter whom they marry or what they do in dating and in marriage, life will somehow work out for the better and they will settle into a routine of happiness and bliss. Many find out later that this is not so! Good families do not just happen....

Previous article in this series: March 15, 2014, p. 278. The Form for the Ordination of Missionaries in the Protestant Reformed Churches is employed to ordain missionaries to be sent either to the heathen or to the dispersed. A mission work directed “to the heathen” has become synonymous with foreign mission work. A missionary sent “to the dispersed” labors in our own country or other Christianized lands. From the Form it is clear what is meant by those who are dispersed. They are the scattered (dispersed) sheep of Christ’s pasture. These sheep had ancestors that were faithful members of the...

Previous article in this series: March 1, 2014, p. 256. In this article we continue to examine one of the paragraphs of the preamble to the constitution of the Domestic Mission Committee of the Protestant Reformed Churches. That paragraph reads: We believe that this missionary activity includes the work of church extension and church reformation, as well as the task of carrying out the Gospel to the unchurched and heathen. However, we are convinced that our present duty lies primarily in the field of church extension and church reformation (1942 Acts of Synod, p. 26). In our last two articles...

Previous article in this series: January 15, 2014, p. 178. In our first article on this subject we defined what church extension and church reformation were. We concluded that article with the thought that many in our churches believe that church extension (or domestic missions) may be accomplished only by means of church reformation. The result has been that in the past we have, for the most part, limited our domestic mission work to church reformation. We are going to pursue this more in coming articles. But there is one more matter in our definition of terms that needs addressing....

In 1942 the first draft of the Constitution of the Mission Committee of the Protestant Reformed Churches was forged and proposed to the synod of that year. The second paragraph of the proposed pream­ble to the constitution carefully expressed the sentiment of many in the churches at that time. We believe that this missionary activity includes the work of church extension, and church reformation, as well as the task of carrying out the Gospel to the unchurched and heathen. Although we look forward to the time that the way will be opened for us to labor among the heathen, both...

It was the year 1965. The synod of the Protestant Reformed Churches met in session on June 2 at the First Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rap­ids. Was this a monumental meeting of synod? Prob­ably not. But at this synod an eleven-page “new policy” for domestic missions and church extension work was adopted (see Acts of Synod, 1965, pp. 105-115). In years following, this policy faded away into oblivion for one reason or another. But it was a good policy. This now forty-eight-year-old policy stated (p. 112): It is not merely the labor of a missionary to sit back and...

The mystery! From the beginning of the world it has been hid in God. God gave all kinds of evidence regarding the mystery in the Old Testament. The pieces of the puzzle were all there. But the mystery was not solved by the sons of men then. They could not assemble the facts, even though they had them all. This is true because that mystery takes a work of God through His Spirit. Today that mystery has been revealed to the church in the New Testament by the holy apostles and prophet: “That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and...

Previous article in this series: April 15, 2012, p. 331.   This is the mystery of the church: people of many nations (the Gentiles) are made fellow heirs, and of the same body with the church of the Old Testament (Eph. 3:6). Christ has abolished the Old Testament ceremonies of the law in order to make in Himself of two (Jews and Gentiles) one new man (Eph. 2:15). The church is no longer limited to one nation. It has become universal. This mystery was hid in God from the beginning of the world. But according to God’s eternal purpose, which...