All Articles For Kuiper, Dale H

The Bible does not make a distinction between usury and interest, a distinction very common in the financial world today. The Bible does make a distinction in regard to the person who is charged the interest or usury, as we will see; but it does not distin­guish between a legal rate (interest) and a rate that is in excess of what is legal (usury). The biblical terms used to set forth God’s will in this matter of charging for the use of one’s money are vivid and instructive. The Hebrew word has the root meaning of striking with a sting...

If anyone should wonder why we busy ourselves with such matters as our creeds and their relevancy, we would begin by calling several items to your attention.

In the Scriptures, beauty is inseparably related to God and His salvation. The Scriptures speak of the natural ugliness of sinful man and of the beauty of salvation in Jesus Christ, while warning against false beauty in the working out of that salvation. The Hebrew word means bright, fair, comely, and glorious. The word in the Greek has the basic meaning of hour; then, belonging to the right hour, timely; and finally, flourishing and beautiful. The Lord our God is a beautiful God! The desire of the saints is “to behold the beauty of the Lord” (Ps. 27:4) and to...

Rev. Kuiper is pastor of Immanuel Protestant Reformed Church in Lacombe, Alberta, Canada. What can we learn from the restless seas? What do the Scriptures intend to teach us with these large bodies of water with their immeasurably powerful waves, tides, and storms? The uniform teaching of the Word of God is that the seas have a negative, symbolic meaning: they stand for troubles, and especially for unbelief and the wicked nations of the world. How often does the psalmist express his troubles in terms of these great depths! When his soul is cast down and he is filled with...

Rev. Kuiper is pastor of Immanuel Protestant Reformed Church in Lacombe, Alberta, Canada. Not many times do the-words laugh and laughter occur in the Scriptures. We read of the laughter of the wicked, the laughter of the righteous, and, most striking of all, the laughter of God: As we consider this subject we ought to be reminded that we live in a world where comedy is king and where the insanity of unbelief is punctuated by forced humor, jokes, blasphemies, frivolousness, and inanities. How much the world is with us so that these things enter into the conversations of believers....

Rev. Kuiper is pastor of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope purifies himself, even as he is pure.” I John 3:2-3 It is an amazing fact of church history that when the Reformers battled hard against salvation by the works of the law, they did not throw away the baby with the...

Rev. Kuiper is pastor of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It is very striking that the word promise is found much more often in the New Testament than in the Old. We find two reasons for this. The New Testament gives us the fulfillment of the promise with the coming of Jesus Christ. And, most often when a promise of God is spoken in the old dispensation, the word promise is not used, but we simply read “And the Lord God said…” (Gen. 3:15), or “And I will…” (Gen. 17:7). There “are given unto us exceeding great...

Rev. Kuiper is pastor of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Is. 7:14). “And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12). A sign not merely of identification, but a sign of all Jesus’ work “that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (II Cor. 8:9). What are...

Rev. Kuiper is pastor of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A door as the means of entering and exiting a building is mentioned several times in Scripture with great significance. The door which Noah built in the ark was shut by the Lord (Gen. 7:16), denoting the perfect safety of Noah’s family. At the time of the first Passover in Egypt, the Israelites put lamb’s blood on the doorposts of their houses (Ex. 12:7) so that the plague of death did not enter their houses. The Israelites were commanded to bring their peace offerings to the door...

Rev. Kuiper is pastor of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The word conscience is found twenty-nine times in holy Scripture, all occurrences in the New Testament, once in the plural, and mostly by the apostle Paul. Even as the English word is a compound, so is the Greek; it’s made up of two smaller words, one meaning jointly, together, with others, or in fellowship, and the other meaning to know, to understand, to perceive. Hence the word has the meaning of joint knowledge, to know together. The question is: Who are they that are involved in this...