Vol 65 Issue 08

On November 11, 1988 our denomination received the addition of a new church, with the organization of Peace Protestant Reformed Church. Peace Church is a daughter church of our South Holland Protestant Reformed Church. The Friday evening organizational service was a solemn, joyous occasion. The service took place in the South Holland Church; and the sermon was preached fittingly by Professor David J. Engelsma. The text was I Timothy 3:15, 16, with the topic being, “The Church as Pillar and Ground of the Truth.” The sermon emphasized the high and lofty calling of the newly organized church, as the pillar and...

Mr. Wigger is an elder in the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. Calls The Council of our First Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan did not at once place a trio before their congregation for election of one to serve as a second missionary to Jamaica. Their Jamaica Mission Committee was instructed to review the gross list of possible candidates, and to research Synodical decisions which may pertain to calling a “second” missionary when the “first” missionary is leaving. The Council of our Holland, Michigan church has granted Missionary Bruinsma’s request that he remain in Jamaica for four to six...

Rev. Terpstra is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Pella, Iowa. “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith; . . . And the Catholic Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Essence. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.”

Mr. Doezema is secretary of the Domestic Mission Committee and of First Church’s Jamaica Mission Committee. In looking back over the years they spent on the island of Jamaica, the Bruinsmas will undoubtedly be able to recall many good times. Just as surely, they’ll remember times of stress. Ups and downs there were. In fact, Rev. Bruinsma himself has characterized his work in Jamaican missions as an “emotional roller coaster.” Hurricane Gilbert, methinks, would have to be put on the down side. And the kind of stress which belonged to the days which followed must have energized the feeling of...

Rev. Gritters is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Byron Center, Michigan. What do you think of yourself as a person? How is your self esteem? In other words, in your eyes, how much are you worth? This isn’t a burning question just in the church world today. (It is that, too. I own and have read just two of the many books written about “self esteem” lately. Ray Burwick wrote one called, Self Esteem: You’re Better Than You Think, and Robert Schuller, Self Esteem: The New Reformation. And, though Burwick’s does not attack the basics of the Reformed faith as Schuller’s does, it...

Rev. Van Baren is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. The Vaunted Freedom of Speech We hear much about the freedom of speech we enjoy in the United States. It is true that we still have considerable leeway with respect to our freedom of speech. But the restrictions on free speech are growing. Though one is presumably “free” to curse God at will, and one is “free” to present the evils of pornography (within certain limits), the freedom to confess one’s faith under some circumstances is forbidden. The following article from The Crusader, March, 1988, indicates the limits...

   … of appreciation I would like to subscribe to your excellent magazine. I have been receiving copies free of charge from a friend. After a steady diet of (another religious periodical) I find the S.B. more palatable. God bless your new staff. I also agree people are not reading enough of the Reformed truth. It is not slipping away; no, it is being catapulted away. Bob Knaack Holland, MI We want to thank you for the Standard Bearer. Its strong and clear covenantal-Scriptural emphasis is deeply appreciated. “Hang in there,” in the Lord! Enclosed is our check for $25.00, as...

Suzanne Looyenga, wife, mother, and poet, is a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of South Holland, Illinois. The poem is based on a communion sermon that had the Song of Solomon 2:4 as its text: “He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.” Beloved Bridegroom, I am come, Carried by Thee, my love, my life, Unto this house of banqueting, this house of wine, For Thou hast called me wife And I am Thine. Here o’er me floats the banner of Thy love To all proclaiming that my place has been secured. Here...

There is good reason to take another, closer look at the Christian’s duty to submit unconditionally to the authority of the civil state. (As to this duty and other aspects of the relationship of church and state, confer our special issue of December 1, 1988.) Reformed Christians everywhere in the world today must work out their salvation in a revolutionary environment. Many Reformed people in the United States have been taught from childhood on in the Christian schools (but not in Protestant Reformed Christian schools) that the Revolution in which this nation was born was justified, if it was not...

Prof. Decker is professor of Practical Theology in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake; Having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me. Philippians 1:29, 30 What a marvelous comfort! Do you suffer? Of course you do. All God’s people suffer. There’s the suffering of persecution, afflictions of the body, of the mind and soul. For some, pain is a daily reality and there is only the prospect of imminent death....