All Articles For Dick Mitchell C

In our last study (Standard Bearer, March 15, 1997) we fo­cused on how Jesus demon­strated His being the light of the world in the healing of the man born blind. This time our study turns es­pecially to the various reactions to this light-shining miracle. And what do we see first of all? Religious Rapscallions! Some (the neighbors, v.8?) brought the man healed of his blindness to a group of Pharisees. These religious “elite” of the Jews, understanding that this miracle which Jesus had performed might gain for Him more disciples, seek at all costs to discredit Him and this notable...

Rev. Dick is pastor of the First Protestant Reformed Church of Lacombe, AB, Canada. Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Hebrews 12:1, 2 Wherefore . ....

Rev. Dick is pastor of Grace Protestant Reformed Church in Standale, Michigan. If you are a Grace Life person, you are a morning person. You are a lover of morning. For it is the time of glories. You just have to get up. You have to be there among those morning glories. To observe them, smell them, listen to them, touch them, and drink them in. To enjoy them. So those glories become yours. So you are glorified for another day. What are those morning glories? Why do we not want to miss them? Why especially in the morning of...

Rev. Dick is pastor of Grace Protestant Reformed Church in Standale, Michigan. Hoopla over the movie The Passion of the Christ will, by the time this article is published, have simmered somewhat. Evangelical faddists will have begun testing the market for another new thing (a Disney version of the Chronicles of Narnia, anyone?). Conservatives will have gone back to the Bible for sermon material. Writers, if you will believe me, will still be finding The Passion grist for their mills. At this same time most churches are, in their worship services, in their concerts, and in their devotions, reflecting upon...

Rev. Dick is pastor of Grace Protestant Reformed Church in Standale, Michigan. What has Jerusalem to do with Athens? This is the question theologians put when considering the matter of how the Church, Jerusalem, is related and relates to the world, Athens. Put another way, the question is How is the Church, and how are the people of God in that Church a part of or not a part of the culture of a fallen world? And if by “culture” is meant “the ideas, customs, skills, arts, etc. of a given people in a given period; civilization” (New World Dictionary),...

Rev. Dick is pastor of the First Protestant Reformed Church of Edmonton, AB, Canada. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. Psalm 1:1, 2 When light passes through a suitable prism it is diffracted or dispersed so that one can see a whole spectrum of different colors. So, when the light of God’s Word shines into the believing mind,...

Rev. Dick is pastor of Grace Protestant Reformed Church in Standale, Michigan. Last time we addressed the subject of “doctrine fruit.” This fruit is either absent from many so-called Christian and church vines, or hanging there, altogether rotten—doctrine which gathers flies. Lest you think this writer is declaring doctrinal doomsday when in actuality this year and the last decades will be known by connoisseurs and historians as vintage years of truth, allow just one example. A preacher I know was confronted after a worship service recently by a person who happened to be visiting that morning, and who took offense...

Rev. Dick is pastor of Grace Protestant Reformed Church in Standale, Michigan. Jesus is in Jerusalem. The feast of “the dedication” is being cel-ebrated by the Jews. This feast, though not authorized by the Hebrew Scriptures, was nevertheless celebrated annually by the Jews. It is still celebrated today. The Jews call it Hanukkah (Hebrew for “dedication”). The purpose of the feast was (and still is) the “commemoration of the purification and rededication of the temple by Judas the Maccabee in the year 165 BC, exactly three years after it had been defiled by the wicked Antiochus Epiphanes” (Hendriksen). Jewish tradition...

Rev. Dick is pastor of Grace Protestant Reformed Church in Standale, Michigan. Thank you for the opportunity to address you tonight at this, the annual meeting of the Reformed Free Publishing Association. Thank you, and may God, Allah, Buddha, Yahweh, Jehovah, Cosmic Consciousness, and “all that is,” bless you! Before I am tarred and feathered, or worse—my brethren, lend me your ears! This bizarre pronouncement of blessing from many gods is not, of course, mine. It was that of a woman who offered it as a conclusion to a letter to the editor of a certain paper, in which letter...

Rev. Dick is pastor of Grace Protestant Reformed Church in Standale, Michigan. The history recorded in John 11 is about Jesus’ raising from the dead one Lazarus. We do not know much of Lazarus. He was of the town of Bethany, nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs (two miles) off (11:18). His sisters were the devout and devoted Mary and Martha. The most significant fact of Lazarus is that he was loved of Jesus. Pointed reference is made to this fact in the narrative. In verse three we are told that the sisters sent unto Jesus saying, “Lord, behold, he...