Vol 64 Issue 08

Ben Wigger is an elder in the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. From the trio of the Reverends Kenneth Hanko, Gise Van Baren, and Bernard Woudenberg, the congregation in Holland has extended a call to Rev. G. Van Baren, presently pastor of Hudsonville, to become their undershepherd. On Monday, December 21, First Church in Grand Rapids held their annual congregational meeting. The first item of business that night was to call a second missionary for the island of Jamaica from a trio of the Reverends DeVries, Gritters, and Koole. From that trio Rev. DeVries was chosen. The Lord willing,...

Ronald H. Hanko is pastor of Trinity Protestant Reformed Church, Houston, Texas. The Humanity Of Christ 1.The testimony of Scripture. There seems little need of demonstrating the humanity of Christ from Scripture when there are few, even as far removed from orthodox Christianity as the sects, the Jews, or the Muslims, who do not believe that there was a real man named Jesus. Especially when one remembers that, if anything, there is today the tendency to emphasize the humanity of Christ to the detriment of His deity, it would seem superfluous to try to prove from Scripture that He is...

Barrett L. Gritters is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Byron Center, Michigan. I ended last time showing the differences between the decisions the young men and young women make regarding what to do after high school. To summarize, we could say that the decision of what to do after high school has to be made in the light of these questions: First, what abilities has God given me? What are my God-given skills? Second, what does God tell me in His Word as to what is proper and what not? And third, what can I do that best...

Arie den Hartog is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Randolph, Wisconsin. The inspired apostle of our Lord exhorts us unto this holy exercise in I Timothy 4:7. He is writing especially to the evangelist Timothy and to those like him with regard to work in the church. But what Paul writes certainly applies to all of us. We all need to exercise ourselves unto godliness. How little concern there is today in the church for such exercise. The world of Christendom is full of lazy, lethargic, and weak Christians because of this. There is no more shameful and evil...

Gise J. Van Baren is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. The “New Understanding” of Scripture There is continued pressure within the Christian Reformed Church to ordain women into the offices of elder and minister (the office of the diaconate is already opened to them). This open agitation continues despite the clear decisions of the Synod against such ordination. In the Calvinist Contact, Sept. 18, 1987, there appears a letter to the editor which I quote in part: In a recent pastoral letter, Rev. Leonard Schalkwyk wrote about “Balanced Christianity”. . . . He told of churches and...

John A. Heys is a minister emeritus in the Protestant Reformed Churches. One of the striking things in the book of Ruth is not what we find written on its pages, but what we are not told, and what God does not want us to know. Apart from the groups of people—such as the women who met Naomi when she returned to Bethlehem; the people who witnessed the fact that Boaz said that he would redeem the land of Elimelech by marrying Ruth; and the women who spoke so glowingly when the son, Obed, was born to Boaz and Ruth—the...

Herman C. Hanko is professor of Church History and New Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. Sometime ago when I was discussing in this series of articles the evil of abortion, I mentioned the fact that in some places aborted fetuses were being used for experimental purposes. Some called into question whether this was really being done. Just today I was reading an article which appeared in the October 12, 1987 issue of World (Vol. 2, No. 19) in which an aspect of this matter is reported. I thought it worthwhile to interrupt our discussion of euthanasia to quote at length from...

Now and then we receive letters (or occasionally just a note, along with a subscription renewal) expressing appreciation for our magazine. Recently I received such a letter from a reader in England. Partly because representatives of our Contact Committee only recently r-e ported on their visit to the U.K. and about the situation there, and partly because another long time correspondent from England expressed to me the wish that our Contact Committee could have conducted a meeting in London, and partly simply to share with you the fact that The Standard Bearerserves as a witness in unexpected circumstances and places (often...

As we have already seen in our previous editorial on this subject, the Free Presbyterian Magazine (May, 1987) marshals considerable evidence to prove that Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones had strong pentecostalist leanings. In this installment we will cite more such evidence from the same magazine. First of all, the article cites the Foreword to Lloyd-Jones’s Joy Unspeakable, written by the Rev. Peter Lewis, as follows: “The past 20 years have seen the widespread growth of two radical and potentially mighty movements in Great Britain. These are the reformed movement with its stress on doctrine, expository preaching and total loyalty to scripture; and the...

Cornelius Hanko is an emeritus minister in the Protestant Reformed Churches. Ques. 125. Which is the fourth petition? Ans. “Give us this day our daily bread”; that is, be pleased to provide us with all things necessary for the body, that we may thereby acknowledge thee to be the only fountain of all good, and that neither our care nor industry, nor even thy gifts, can profit us without thy blessing; and therefore that we may withdraw our trust from all creatures, and place it alone in thee. Our Father! Heaven is Thy throne and the earth is Thy foot...