For the past sixteen years, it has been my responsibility, but also my privilege, to serve the members of the Protestant Reformed Churches as editor of the Standard Bearer. In some small way, I may hope, a much wider audience has benefited. Nearly half the present subscriptions to the magazine go outside the Protestant Reformed Churches. Responses, public and private, have indicated appreciation, as well as vigorous opposition, from without.
Although the Standard Bearer exists primarily for the building up of the members of the Protestant Reformed Churches in the truth, it is also a voice, sometimes friendly, at other times critical, but always deeply interested, to the entire Reformed community worldwide. I need not mention the issues, controversies, and developments affecting the broad Reformed community that were addressed in the editorials. Even when I was speaking to the Protestant Reformed Churches, I seldom forgot the distant relations listening in. To paraphrase the church father, “I am Reformed. I esteem nothing Reformed foreign to me.”
I acknowledge, not the assistance, but the cooperation of the managing editor. We simply worked together to publish a magazine that would be the very best in appearance and content we could make it.
At long last, I may, and must, publicly express my gratitude for the help of my wife in this work now completed. During the first five hectic years, without complaint she virtually gave up having a husband. She has always read the editorials and other articles of mine before they were published, with a critical eye. Now and again, she wisely moderated, not the zeal of the editor, but certain sharper expressions of his zeal (which moderation will come as a surprise to some).
The Standard Bearer has not deviated from the course laid out by my illustrious predecessors. It maintains, develops, applies, defends, and boldly promotes creedal Reformed Christianity as confessed by the Protestant Reformed Churches. God be praised!
We may confidently expect the same from the capable men who now take on the editorship. They will, of course, add their own insights in their own styles. God bless and prosper their work!
Eighty years of faithful witness to the truth of the sovereignty and glory of the God and Father of Jesus Christ, and our God and Father for Christ’s sake!
The Standard Bearer is now the oldest continuously published, subscription-based Reformed magazine in North America—a tribute, not from associations of periodicals, but from the providence of God.
May its witness long continue!
May its witness increasingly be heard!
Finally, then,
—DJE
