All Articles For Hofman W.

The Bible has been received by the church of Christ from the first ages as the Word of God, the great fountain of truth. As such it has been the object of wider, deeper, more earnest, and more assiduous meditation and study than any other book whatever; yea, even more than all other books combined. Thousands upon thousands of works have been written, to unfold its truths and apply them to the hearts of men. The amount of Biblical literature during the four centuries since the Reformation is prodigious. The labor of a lifetime would not suffice for a bare...

* Speech delivered at the Annual meeting of the R.F.P.A. on Thursday evening, September 14, 1944 in Fuller Ave. Comments and criticisms concerning any of the material here presented is invited. Tonight we celebrate twenty years of continuous publication of the Standard Bearer. I thought it appropriate, therefore, on this twentieth anniversary, to depart somewhat from the usual type of speech heard on the occasion of the Annual business meeting and to review briefly the past twenty years of history of the Standard Bearer. To accomplish this resume of the past twenty years many facts have been gathered and some conclusions...

* Speech delivered at the Annual meeting of the R.F.P.A. on Thursday evening, September 14, 1944 in Fuller Ave. Comments and criticisms concurring any of the material here presented is invited. At the close of the first installment of this article, was concluded from the facts presented, that the cause of the Standard Bearer is losing supporters and that the paper is no longer read and received as it should be. If you would not wish to grant that on the facts thus far revealed, certainly the Annual meeting itself testifies loudly to that conclusion. On the night this paper...

* Speech delivered at the Annual meeting of the R.F.P.A. on Thursday evening, September 14, 1944 in Fuller Ave. Comments and criticisms concerning any of the material here presented is invited. We have called these sad facts because they reveal the following. There is a difference of at least $525 in receipts and actual cost of the paper each year. This means that, on an average, 310 subscriptions are not paid for yearly. Secondly, they reveal that the Standard Bearer is still a babe; supported and fed by mother and attached to her apron strings at 20 years of age. Thirdly,...

Our ‘’modern age” must also have “modern” technique and methods in the field of education. Largely under the influence of the philosophy of John Dewey, new theories have been conceived, stated, and incorporated into the public school systems in a varying degree. The results are called by various names: Progressive Education, New Education, Social Education, Social Experimentalism, etc. The purpose of this “modern” education is expressed in the names by which it is known. The development of a socially efficient individual is the primary end sought by the new educators. Social education should prepare the pupil for living with his...

So much has been written and said on this subject in the past twenty years of our history that it is not likely that anything new will be found in this discussion. Nor is that, perhaps, the most important at present but rather to re-emphasize what has already been said and written, and that is important. In reviewing our missionary activity of the past twenty years one finds cycles or periods of enthusiasm and labor and lethargy and non-activity. At present, apparently, we are approaching the bottom of the latter cycle, which finds our missionary activity in a state of...

Last time we discussed the missionary calling of the Church in general. Our calling as Protestant Reformed Churches is not different than, or distinct from, that calling, yet even as we have a specific place as Churches so do we have a specific calling within that general mandate. This follows from our specific calling as Protestant Reformed Churches. We believe that by God’s grace, we represent the purest manifestation of the Church of Christ in our present time. We believe, therefore, that Christ operates in and through us with His Spirit and Word revealing the will and counsel of God...

John Milton, in his “Paradise Lost”, gives a vivid and terrifying description of death and its origin. According to the poem Satan is searching his way out of hell to seek out the created world in order to tempt man. He makes his way to the “gates of Hell” and there he finds: “On either side a formidable Shape; The one seemed woman to the waist, and fair, But ended foul in many a scaly fold, Voluminous and vast, a serpent armed With mortal sting: about her middle round A cry of hell-hounds never ceasing barked With wide Cerberean mouths...

Since our Editor has been criticizing the Complaint against Dr. Gordon H. Clark of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church we thought it might be interesting to inform our readers concerning both Dr. Clark and the disposal of the case. In 1936 Dr. Clark was invited to become Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College. At that time Dr. Clark was a member and ruling elder of the Redeemer Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. After a year’s probation at Wheaton College, Dr. Clark was elected Associate Professor of Philosophy and made a permanent member of the faculty. In June, 1942, a committee of...

We had in mind to begin this column in an entirely different manner, perhaps by introducing the writers and making a statement or two of our plans for this rubric. Since the evening of September 20, however, these have appeared irrelevant and this article must take precedence. The reason for this should become evident as we proceed. On the evening referred to above, the Reformed Free Publishing Association held its Annual Membership meeting in the First Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids. The Board of the association had expended a special effort in an attempt to arouse interest in this...