Vol 52 Issue 01

There are several items to report in the area of mission and church extension work which would indicate that there is no lack of activity in these areas within our churches. From 346 Water St., Skowhegan, Maine 04976, Rev. D. H. Kuiper reports on some of the facets of his work as missionary as follows: August 27, instead of a regular meeting of the Adult Bible Study Class, the group, in Skowhegan met together for a farewell to Mr. and Mrs. John Hilton and daughter. Mr. Hilton will take up his studies in the Seminary of our churches this fall....

Recently I received a letter from a brother in New Jersey responding to an article which I wrote for theStandard Bearer on the subject of the use of unleavened bread in the Lord’s Supper. His letter is as follows: While reading the guest article “Should we use Unleavened Bread in the Lord’s Supper,” by Rev. Mark Hoeksema, (Standard Bearer, August, 1975) I was set to thinking about the symbolism involved. It would have been interesting to know on what basis those Lutheran Churches mentioned were taking their stand of using unfermented wine in their observance of the sacrament. My experience in...

“We believe that the Father, by the Word, that is, by his Son, hath created of nothing, the heaven, the earth, and all creatures, as it seemed good unto him, giving unto every creature its being, shape, form, and several offices to serve its Creator. That he doth also still uphold and govern them by his eternal providence, and infinite power, for the service of mankind, to the end that man may serve his God.

1. Incompetency. “And I will give boys (as) their princes, and infants shall be ruling over them” (v. 4, Hebrew). Not merely inferior kings would rule over them, but without a king, inept rulers, incapable of “Solomonian” quality, would be of a more “Rehoboamian” hotheaded, reckless despotism. The mere shadow of a king, a boy, would rule, whose advisers would be mental and moral weaklings, the impudent, the imprudent, the effeminate, the cowardly!

War? Whose interested in war? We aren’t involved in fighting wars now, we don’t even have an active draft for young men. Why think about war? Well, that’s just the point. Lest we become complacent and relegate wars to ancient history, we had better do some serious thinking about war as it applies to us today.

The subject is love. Although we us the term love very loosely sometimes, saying we love this food or we love those clothes, although the word of God differentiates between a natural, horizontal love and a spiritual, vertical love, we ought to be reminded that for the child of God there is really only one kind of love; there is love. By way of introduction to this tremendously important and fascinating subject, consider these examples. There was a young man who was courting a maiden.

There are mixed feelings about “leaving” one department of the Standard Bearer and moving into another. It is, I suppose, something like moving. Although I have moved in my lifetime more times than I care to count, each move was accompanied by these same mixed feelings. One dislikes leaving a house one has come to know well. He knows the creaks and sighs, the sounds during the night as well as he knows the speech of a close friend. In it he can find his way without difficulty—even in the dark.

Pierre Courthial’s Dream  It was a year ago that the Standard Bearer (Oct. 1, 1974) referred to a dream of the editor of The Outlook. In this dream the editor dreamt of a Congress of Conservatives. Rev. John Vander Ploeg was very willing that this conference would also be attended by representatives of our Protestant Reformed Churches. However, the editor was afraid of one thing, namely, that time and energy and efforts would be exhausted in a futile effort to resolve a controversy that is of fifty years’ standing.

With this article we make a beginning at reporting to you some of our experiences and impressions of our tour to Australasia. The Rev. Hanko and I have completed a lengthy and detailed report to the denominational Committee for Contact With Other Churches; and what we report here will be substantially the same as our official report. Only I will try to include some sidelights and some additional information which might serve to make these articles a bit more interesting than our official report.

This issue is the first of Volume 52, and you will notice a few changes. All change is not improvement; but we hope and pray that these changes will serve to help ourStandard Bearer hold high the standard, and that they will kindle continued interest on the part of you, our readers.  One change we already noted in our last issue. Reluctantly we released Mr. Donald Doezema from his duties as news editor; and we welcome Mr. Kenneth Vink as his replacement.