Vol 62 Issue 10

David Harbach is a teacher at Adams St. Prot. Ref. Christian School, Grand Rapids, Michigan. From First Church’s Jamaica Mission Committee we received the following report: “Rev. Joostens and his family were the victims of an armed burglary at their home in Jamaica on January 15. By the grace of God no one was physically hurt, but the family was psychologically shaken up. A delegation was sent to assist them and the Bruinsmas during this difficult time. We have felt God’s faithfulness through this trial, as the commitment to the field is very deep in both families. Though we would...

REASON WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF RELIGION, by Nicholas Wolterstorff; Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1984; 161 pp., $4.95 (paper). (Reviewed by Prof. H. Hanko) This is the second edition of a book originally published in 1976. At the time of the original publication I reviewed this book, which review can be found in the Standard Bearer, Vol. LIII, pp. 497-499. In that rather lengthy review I criticized the book severely for denying the decisive role which Scripture plays in all true knowledge and accused Wolterstorff of developing an epistemology which was basically a denial of the infallible Scriptures and which leads...

Arie den Hartog a missionary of the Protestant Reformed Churches, is currently laboring in Singapore. Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ who gathers His church through the preaching of the Holy Gospel from every tribe and tongue and nation. It has been quite some time since we have written a report on our work in Singapore for The Standard Bearer. Some of our readers will have read the regular form letters sent to a number of our churches. They will have to excuse us if some of the news in this report has been told them before. We...

Ronald L. Cammenga is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Loveland, Colorado. None of us is above criticism. All of us need honest, constructive criticism. We ought to be willing to receive criticism. From time to time it will be necessary for us to give criticism to others. Criticism is healthy. Criticism can be of great benefit to us. We can all profit from criticism. Criticism can be the surgeon’s knife to cut away some serious, life-threatening infection in us, and be the means to restore us to spiritual and psychological health. We need to learn how to give...

Thomas C. Miersma is pastor of the First Protestant Reformed Church, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. We are considering in this column the Reformed principle of Scriptural interpretation, that the Word of God is its own interpreter. This principle, which the reformers have taught us, we are pursuing from the viewpoint of its application to our own Bible study, and confining ourselves for practical reasons to its application to the study of the English Bible. These are the same techniques and approaches which the reformers themselves used in their own exposition of God’s Word and which you will find reflected in their...

Jason L. Kortering is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Grandville, Michigan. The Torah designates this second book of the Pentateuch as Shamoth, “names,” taken from the opening word of the book itself. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, changed the name to Exodos, which in turn was taken over by the Latin Vulgate as Exodus, meaning “going out.” Authorship Details of the author of the first five books of the Bible have been presented in former articles and need not be repeated here. A few additional observations as they apply to the book of Exodus follow. First,...

Gise J. Van Baren is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. After the return from Florida, there was to be no more walking for Alice. Earlier, two persons would hold her, each by an arm, as she slowly walked from one end of the room to the other. Once or twice a day was enough. This would loosen her muscles a bit, preventing cramps and pain. But now even this short walk had become too difficult. One more activity had to be given up. There would be no more walking for Alice. No more walking! She had...

Robert D. Decker is professor of New Testament and Practical Theology in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. More on “Alive ’85” In this column recently (December 15, 1985 issue) we published a report and critique of an evangelistic campaign in the Grand Rapids area called “Alive ’85.” Because being against something like “Alive ’85” is somewhat akin to being against “motherhood and apple pie,” I expected some criticism of that article. This expectation proved correct. A brother from Holland, MI wrote as follows: “Item 2, Page 127,Alive 85. I always cringe a little when I hear criticism of the procedures of...

Herman C. Hanko is professor of Church History and New Testament departments at the Protestant Reformed Seminary. In our last article we discussed some general principles of importance for our treatment of the moral aspects of different forms of medical technology. With this article, we want to begin our discussion proper of this subject. It is probably best to follow a sort of chronological order in dealing with various aspects of this issue: i.e., first of all to treat the moral aspects of medical technology which have affected the conception of a child and its development before birth; and then...

It is rather striking, I think, that recently the Reformed Fellowship and its magazine, The Outlook, have been paying more attention to the subject of “common grace” than they sometimes have in the past. In the January, 1986 issue of The Outlook there are two references to the subject. One is in the REF’s evaluation of the Christian Reformed Church’s “Contemporary Testimony,” which will be up for final adoption at the 1986 CRC Synod. The other is more extensive. It is found in Dr. Henry Vander Goot’s address to the annual meeting of the Reformed Fellowship, a transcript of which is found on...