Steam blasts from his flared nostrils in the early morning cool. Hooves scrape dirt as he paws the ground impatiently. Thunder rolls as heavily muscled bodies rush across the field, fletched arrows rattling at their sides, riders holding fast to spear and shield. Trumpets blast amid the clash of battle noises, yet the horse “mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted; neither turneth he back from the sword…. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting” (Job 39:19-25). The heaviness and sheer power of the horse...
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pastor of First PRC in Grand Rapids, Michigan Better that a millstone is tied around your neck, and you are cast into the deep water, than that you should offend one of the little ones (Matt. 18:6). Jesus taught this to His arguing disciples after setting a child in the middle of them all. That child was the visual cue, for the disciples and for us, as to what Jesus meant by the “little ones.” Little ones are, of course, little. They are too little to keep up with adults on foot, so wagons are sent to carry them...
pastor of First PRC in Grand Rapids, Michigan Laughter is a sound we usually hope to hear as we make our way to gatherings of family or friends over the holidays. The table set with saucers and plates, the full glasses, the piles of food, and the light hearts are all designed with this very purpose in mind. “A feast,” the wise preacher tells us, “is made for laughter” (Eccl. 10:19). Living in a fallen world, seeing lined and weary faces on the people around us, we need little reminding that life will be marked by times of weeping...
Pastor of First PRC in Grand Rapids, Michigan Vengeance is a scary word. We are inclined to shy away from it, knowing as we do that “desire of revenge” is a sin serious enough that God “accounts” it “as murder” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 106). Our mothers were right when they taught us not to throw back the rocks at those who first cast them at us. Part of what makes vengeance so scary is just how intense it can be. Long before any novel or ballad put words to the inferno that ignites in the heart of a person who...
by Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer. Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2023. Pp 501. $34.99. Hardcover. ISBN 9780736988704. Reviewed by Joseph Holstege. Writing on the topic of critical social theory1 in the modern context is fraught with challenges. There is the challenge of terminology and definitions, for starters. What is critical social theory? Is it the same as “woke”? Is it a new cultural form of Marxism? Is it a branch of feminism, an arm of the LGBTQ movement, or a racial justice idea? Then there is the challenge that arises due to the academic roots of critical social theory....
We were cruising down the interstate on a Spring break getaway for two. Our little one-year-old boy was safely in the care of grandma. There was nothing but the open road, and time to talk. I was looking out the window as my wife began, carefully, to bring up an idea that had been germinating in her mind for some time. Though we recently experienced the joys and fatigue of being first-time parents, this new chapter in our lives did not arrive without a struggle. We had been married for four years, three of which included navigating the maze of...
Rev. Joseph Holstege, pastor of First PRC in Grand Rapids, Michigan You cannot see honor. You cannot point to it, measure it, weigh it. It will not fill your stomach when you are hungry. It will not refresh you when you are hot. It will not warm you when you are cold. It is nothing. And yet, it is everything. There is a lust for honor that burns insatiably in the human heart. To have the royal apparel around your shoulders, to ride in the king’s chariot pulled by the king’s horse, to wear the crown, to be proclaimed...
When you hear the word gate, you likely think of chain links or white pickets opening to a little patch of green. When Jesus spoke of gates, it would have been heavy wooden doors ajar beside thick stone walls that entered the minds of His hearers. There were wide gates with broad roads and heavy traffic into the city every morning. There were also narrow gates with paths more difficult to navigate, a fitting illustration of the self-denying way that leads to life for the few who find it (Matt. 7:13, 14). A gate at its most basic idea is...
It may be one of the most misused words in the English language. An athlete has an amazing comeback, though everyone said his sporting days were over. A singer comes out with a new hit single, long after she was written off as old news. A CEO climbs back to the top after suffering a setback. And the news headlines flash—so-and-so has ‘redeemed’ himself! So goes the legacy of a foundational concept in the Christian faith when it is subjected to the eroding winds of pop-culture. The basic flaw in the popular usage of this term is the misidentification of...
Rev. Joseph Holstege, pastor of Zion Protestant Reformed Church in Jenison, Michigan There is a euphoric comfort that comes from staring at the pale face of the “lesser light” that was set “to rule the night” (Gen. 1:16). Among the diamonds set by the Creator in the dark expanse, none is so “fair as the moon” (Song 6:10). As anyone knows who has ever laid back in a soft patch of green on a summer night, though there is one glory of the sun and another of the stars, there is still “another glory of the moon” (I Cor. 15:41)....
