Vol 69 Issue 17

Mr. Wigger is an elder in the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. Ministerial Calls The congregation of Southwest PRC in Grandville, MI has extended a call to Rev. R. Dykstra, presently serving as pastor of Doon, IA PRC. Rev. John Heys, one of our denomination’s ministers emeriti, was admitted to the Holland Hospital in Holland, MI for complications brought on by a severe case of the flu. He had been home for about a week when he was sent back on May 1 with a severe case of ulcers. This would be a good time to remind our readers...

Mormons Answered Verse by Verse, by David A. Reed and John R. Farkas; Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1992; 154 pp., $6.95 (paper). [Reviewed by Agatha Lubbers.] John R. Farkas, former Mormon Elder and Quorum President, and David A. Reed, convert from the, Jehovah’s Witness cult, have collaborated in producing a brief but accurate review and analysis of the fallacious system of thought held by the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, i.e., Mormonism. Conciseness and comprehensiveness are major strengths of the book. In eight brief chapters the authors answer the Mormons. The introduction succinctly summarizes the...

Rev. Lanning is minister of the Christian Reformed Church in the village of Lamont, near Coopersville, Michigan. The year was 1912, and the place was Pittsburgh. In the heart of the city famous for steel and beer, a small group of Psalm-singing United Presbyterians held a last committee meeting. They sat to put the final touches on the labor of nearly twenty years, as they wrote a preface to a new metrical version of the Psalms with music. It was published that year, and has come to be known as The Psalter, 1912, or simply, The Psalter. This book of...

Mr. Lanting, a member of South Holland Protestant Reformed Church, is a practicing attorney. State Aid to Parochial Schools If Jimmy had chosen to attend an equally appropriate private school devoted to progressive politics, feminism, militarism, or Afrocentrism, the state would have provided a sign language interpreter. Because the values espoused by his school are religious, however, Jimmy forfeited this valuable benefit. This is in plain violation of the free exercise clause….  Brief of Christian Legal Society,  Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills (1993) The perennial conflict over the use of governmental funds in nonpublic schools was heightened recently when the U.S....

Rev. denHartog is pastor of Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Redlands, California. God’s people are called to be a separate and holy people. It is impossible to be truly holy unless we separate ourselves from the ungodly world. Never has this calling been more urgent than it is today. God’s judgment of the world was given already in Genesis 6:5: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” This is not the judgment of some extremist cult leader but of the living...

Rev. Lubbers is a minister emeritus in the Protestant Reformed Churches. Notwithstanding she shall be saved, if they continue in faith, and love and holiness with sobriety. I Timothy 2:15 With this article we will finish our exposition of this second chapter of I Timothy. Paul begins this letter to Timothy, not on a morbid and sour note, but with a refreshing and uplifting spiritual tone. In the very introduction Paul adds, “…by the commandment of God our Savior, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope.” The hope of God’s people is that the great Promise made to Eve...

Prof. Decker is professor of Practical Theology in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. March Sunday Religious legitimacy was an undercurrent of the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi(sexual). Equal Rights and Liberation. More; than 300,000 (much less than the 1.11 million many predicted) homosexual rights advocates flooded the nation’s capital on the weekend of April 23-25. About eighty Catholics, Jews, and Protestants, according to news’ sources, attended a workshop on Friday where they were taught how to j use Bible passages to defend the homosexual life-style. The United Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC), a largely homosexual denomination, also...

A Favorite Publication This letter is long overdue. For quite a while I have been planning to write to express how much I appreciate the articles in the Standard Bearer. It has quickly become one of my favorite publications. Whereas I receive certain publications and put them in a pile until I have time to skim through them, I eagerly read the SB upon receiving it. The readers of the SB will be interested to find out that our church, Grand Valley Orthodox Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, uses Professor Herman Hoeksema’s Triple Knowledge as the textbook in one...

The Alliance of Reformed Churches (ARC) is an organization made up of Christian Reformed congregations unhappy with the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) and of independent churches that have seceded from the CRC. It began in 1984 as a “Consistorial Conference” of CR consistories that objected to developments in the CRC and wanted to plot strategy in opposing these developments. In 1990 the group changed its name to “Christian Reformed Alliance” (CRA). CRA became ARC in 1991. This last change of name was due to the fact that by 1991 a number of member churches had left the CRC and were,...

Rev. Hanko is a minister emeritus in the Protestant Reformed Churches. Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Philippians 4:4 Rejoice! God’s people are a happy, a blessed people. Have you noticed how often Scripture speaks of the joy, the happiness, and the blessedness of the people of God? Have you taken note of the many times we are encouraged, urged, and even admonished to rejoice? Or have you considered how often the church of Jesus Christ has spontaneously broken forth into singing? Think of Psalm 95:1, “O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make...