Vol 56 Issue 04

After welcome contributions from the clerks of Classis West and Classis East, it is again up to your news editor to fill this page. There may, however, be another contribution from the clerk of Classis East, as the Classis was scheduled to meet in special session on October 30. This session was called to examine Candidate Ronald Hanko who accepted the call of our Covenant Church in Wykoff, New Jersey to become their second pastor. Their first pastor, Rev. Arie den Hartog, has accepted his call to serve as missionary to Singapore. 

THE HOLY SPIRIT, by C. F. D. Moule; Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1978; 120 pp., $3.95 (paper). (Reviewed by Prof. H. Hanko.)  This further addition to the many publications on the Holy Spirit in this age of Neo-Pentecostalism by the now retired Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University is a heretical contribution to the literature. It denies the personality of the Holy Spirit (See pp. 10, 50, e.g.) and therefore cannot qualify as any worthwhile book in this field.

Dear Members and friends of the R.F.P.A., 

God lives in the home of the God-fearing. He lives in the conscious lives of the members of that home. God is known in that home as the Sovereign Almighty God, the infinite One, the creator of heaven and earth. He is known as the Holy and Just God Who judges all men. He is known as the merciful and faithful covenant God of His people. God is loved in the home of the God-fearing according to who and what He is. The God-fearing in the home live in the profound consciousness that God is always present and that our...

Beginnings!  Do you find them fearful? You do not know what shall take place in the future. It is rather dark and unknown.  There are beginnings of different things. We stand near the beginning of a new volume of THE STANDARD BEARER. Many of you young people stand at the beginning of a new school year. Many of you are beginning your education in a different school than the one you attended last year. Young People’s Society and catechetical training have begun again. Soon a new year will be here, 1980, a new decade. 

Dear Timothy,  In my last letter I talked a bit about the emphasis which Scripture puts upon the unity of man—that he may not be chopped up into separate parts and be considered as a conglomerate of individual pieces. There are some practical considerations that arise from this, and the time has come to discuss some of them. 

Recently, while perusing some of the many religious periodicals received at the seminary, the undersigned discovered two articles which give us some insight into the life and worship of the children of God in Communist China. For many years Communist China has been closed to missionaries, and severe restrictions were placed by the Communist government upon the church. These articles indicate that there is continuing fruit upon the labors of the missionaries of the past.

In a rather effusive editorial entitled “Listen And Be Glad” Editor De Koster, in The Banner (Oct. 19, 1979, pp. 8, 9), comments in connection with the recent visit of Pope John Paul II to the United States. Writes he:

Ques. 28. What advantage is it to us to know that God has created, and by his providence doth still uphold all things?  Ans. That we may be patient in adversity; thankful in prosperity; and that in all things, which may hereafter befall us, we place our firm trust in our faithful God and Father, that nothing shall separate us from his love; since all creatures are so in his hand, that without his will they cannot so much as move.  Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 10.