Vol 46 Issue 04

There is again a flurry of activities of trios and calls. Doon has called Rev. Engelsma, from Loveland; Pella has called the Rev. D. Kuiper from a trio consisting of Revs. Heys, Kuiper, and Lubbers; Hull’s congregation will meet Oct. 27 to call one from a trio comprising the Revs. Kuiper, Lubbers, and Woudenberg; and First Church must elect on Nov. 28, from a trio including the Revs. Engelsma, Lubbers, and Schipper, one to whom they will extend a call to be missionary to Jamaica.

Now that first man Adam falls through the temptation of Satan and through his own willful disobedience. And through his fall the first revelation of God’s covenant disappears. God had placed His servant in Paradise with a free will. Not, of course, as if that first man was free in the sovereign sense of that with all the life of his will he was not entirely dependent upon God’s good pleasure and God’s providential purpose and decree. In that sense no creature is ever free.

It was Christ Himself who gave the original “mission mandate” to the church when He, shortly before His ascension, told His disciples, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” (Matt. 28:19-20).

The Lord’s Day Alliance of the United States is the name of this organization. It is a coordinating agency, once of various Protestant ecclesiastical organizations, now of “Christian” churches, since the Roman Catholic church is included in its representation, It has been established for the cultivation and maintenance of the first day of the week as a day of rest, renewal, worship and religious education.

THE DEDICATION OF THE FIRST TEMPLE BY BLOOD—continued (Hebrews 9:18-22)

The churches on the island of Jamaica where our labors have been confined belong to three chief or principal ministers. These are Rev. Clinton James Elliott, who has some eleven churches scattered from Mahoe in the east to Cambridge and Grange Hill (The Crowder District) in the west, Rev. Joshua E. Frame with five churches most of which are in the area of Lucea and in the Parish (county for us) of Westmoreland, and Rev. Stephen E. Ruddock whose five churches are also mainly in Westmoreland, which is the southwestern section of the island.

This article is a speech which the undersigned delivered at an officebearers’ conference delivered at our Hope church on Sept. 30, the evening before the meeting of Classis East. Some expressed the opinion that it would have been beneficial for many of our young people had they had the privilege of hearing it. Others advised the undersigned to print it in our Standard Bearer. What now follows is the speech as delivered at that officebearers’ conference.

The whole question of liturgical revision is a subject for heated debate these days. It is, in a broad sense, part of the discussion which centers around the problem of making the Church relevant. Many are convinced that the Church is ineffective in our times because it has failed to adapt to the changing circumstances and is, consequently, speaking in a vacuum and reaching no one.

In our previous editorial on this subject we found that the answer to the question whether government subsidy involves government control is affirmative. This, in the first place, is the history of all government subsidy in general: whatever the government pays for it also controls to some degree. In the second place, we found that already there are severe restrictions attached to federal funds granted to private schools under the 1963 Higher Educational Facilities Act.

A Word of Farewell and Hearty Thanks to our faithful News Editor, Mr. J.M. Faber. Brother Faber has faithfully taken care of our Church News department for a little more than twelve years. At our annual staff meeting last June, he tendered his resignation, to take 1 effect at the end of the volume-year, but he agreed to stay on as head of this department until we could find a suitable replacement. We have now obtained that replacement, and therefore Mr. Faber’s contribution to the Church News department in this issue is his last.