Vol 55 Issue 16

In many quarters the recently published New International Version of the Bible is being hailed as the best yet, and even destined to displace the long established King James Version. Several years ago we offered criticism of the NIV’s version of the Gospel according to John when it was tentatively published in a separate booklet. Since then we have said nothing further on the subject—neither when the New Testament was completed and published nor when the entire Bible was offered in this new translation.

Rev. Ronald Van Overloop is considering a call extended to him by the congregation of our church in South Holland, Illinois, to be a missionary in Birmingham, Alabama. Rev. Van Overloop is the pastor of our Hope Church in Walker, Michigan. He spent several months last year as “minister on loan” to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Christchurch, New Zealand. 

THE TRINITY IN THE UNIVERSE, by Nathan R. Wood; Kregel Publications, 1978; 220 pp., $5.95. (Reviewed by Prof. H. Hanko)  This is a reprint of an older work. Nathan Wood was born in 1874 and spent the last years of his active life as President of Gordon College of Theology and Missions in Boston, Massachusetts.

In our recent articles we have been dealing with the great scriptural theme of the fear of God. We have stressed throughout the great importance of fearing God. The fear of God is the very heart of true religion. Repeatedly scripture characterizes the true people of God as those who fear God. The reason why there is so little true religion in our day is that there is so little sense of the fear of God even among those who profess themselves to be Christians. In our last article we stressed that the fear of God is placed in the heart by...

Due to pressures of life and business it was not possible for me to write this time on our Galatian series. We hope to continue this series, God willing, in the next issues of the Standard Bearer. 

Dear Timothy,  The time has come in our correspondence to turn our discussions to some general principles of psychology which underlie the work of the pastor in the congregation in which God has called him to labor.  Before we begin this discussion, there are some general remarks which ought to be made. 

“Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth.”  Are young people happy?  Someone might answer that question with a firm, “Yes.” He might continue with this explanation, “It seems as if they are always laughing. They do not want to take anything seriously. There is usually laughter heard in the hall of any high school.”  Someone else might answer, “Not always. Apart from their peers they can be untalkative and generally very moody.”  Young people, are you happy? 

1. In the trends he promotes. Witchcraft, spiritism, fortune-telling, astrology—things of the ancient Dark Ages past—right? Thirty years ago, right! but today? Wrong! far from it! For the masses of people deny the doctrine of divine revelation and providence, turning, instead, to these occult “sciences,” so that a revival of them appears under the guise and euphemism of para-psychology. The latter claims to be a new science, but it deals in the old field of the psychic, the metaphysical in the sense of supernatural phenomena.

(Note: Kuyper is still talking in this paragraph of the proper formation of the church. In this connection he has talked about the relationship between the church as organism and the church as institute, the relationship between the office of believers and the special offices in the church, and how the institute of the church is actually formed. It is, in Kuyper’s judgment, necessary to understand the true nature of the church in order to understand how the church can deteriorate and degenerate and why the church is in need of church reformation.

In Faith In Focus (March, 1979), the monthly magazine of the Reformed Churches of New Zealand, there is published without comment a letter from Prof. Dr. H. Vanderlaan to the Board of the Reformed Theological College, Geelong, Australia. Prof. Vanderlaan has been professor of philosophy and Christian education at Geelong since 1975, having taken up his work there shortly after the dismissal of Dr. S. Woudstra from the same college.