Vol 72 Issue 16

Mr. Wigger is a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. Evangelism Activities The Evangelism Committee of the First PRC in Grand Rapids, MI, in its ongoing efforts to advertise and publicize the mission and calling of First Church in the northeast and east part of Grand Rapids, decided to advertise an invitation to attend both their Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday services. This was done in part by placing that invitation in a local area newspaper the week of April 1st, and it also involved the congregation by encouraging them to invite their families and neighbors to...

Fighting the Good Fight: A Brief History of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, by D.G. Hart & John Muether. Philadelphia, PA: Committee for the Historian of the OPC, 1995. 217 pp. $11.95 (paper). [Reviewed by Prof. Herman Hanko.] The authors have produced an excellent work in their description of their church: the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC). It is eminently readable; it is informative; it is a solid defense of the place in the ecclesiastical world which God has given the OPC; and it is even-handed in its evaluation of the OPC and her work. The book is more than a history...

Prof. Engelsma is professor of Dogmatics and Old Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought, by John M. Frame. Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 1995. 463pp. $24.99 (cloth)/$19.99 (paper). In commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Cornelius Van Til, Professor John Frame has written what must be the definitive single-volume analysis of his mentor’s thought. Frame is a sympathetic analyst. He acknowledges Van Til as “the major theological influence upon me” and lauds him as “the most important Christian thinker of the twentieth century.” Indebtedness and admiration do...

Mr. Doezema is secretary of the Domestic Mission Committee. “In response to the question: ‘Is one missionary for all of Great Britain realistic?’ the answer is clearly, ‘No,’ but we can hardly expect the PRC to sanction more than one man!” The British Reformed Fellowship (which offered the above assessment of needs in the UK) was established in 1990 by a group of Christians “concerned for the defence and propagation of the historic Reformed Faith in the British Isles.” One of their stated objectives is “to organize meetings, conferences, preaching services and other activities in order to further the Reformed...

Rev. Brummel, pastor of Edgerton Protestant Reformed Church, is secretary of the Foreign Mission Committee. Christ’s calling to His disciples and to the church of all ages is clear and unmistakable: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:15, 16). Why such a calling? Christ has seen fit to use the preaching of the Word by ordained ministers as the means through which He gathers His church. What an awesome privilege! The preaching of the Word...

Rev. Key is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Randolph, Wisconsin. When we discuss man’s creation, we are immediately drawn to the truth that man was created in the image and after the likeness of God. We read in Genesis 1:26, 27: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own...

Rev. VanBaren is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Loveland, Colorado. “Whom say the people that I am?” It was Christ Himself who asked the question of His disciples. The answer, recorded in Luke 9:19-20, was, “John the Baptist; but some say, Elias; and others say, that one of the old prophets is risen again. He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am? Peter answering said, The Christ of God.” Through the ages many have sought to answer that question as well — though most do not give the answer of Peter. Who is this “Jesus”?...

Rev. Woudenberg is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Kalamazoo, Michigan. It was in the months following Schilder’s visit that the first indications of difficulty began to come to the surface. The difficulty was first with Schilder himself. If he had really believed our differences to be only a matter of terminology, was it not to be expected that on his return to the Netherlands he would have begun to explain the essential similarities between our positions, and thus work toward developing a common terminology which would bring us together? Instead, however, his writings went on as though his...

Standing decisively against J. Marcellus Kik’s interpretation of Matthew 24:3-35, particularly verse 34, in his book, An Eschatology of Victory (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1971), are the following considerations drawn from the passage itself. 1) Kik’s interpretation ignores that part of the disciples’ question that asks about “the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world” (v. 3). Again and again in his explanation of Matthew 24:4-31 Kik presents the question that Jesus is answering as though it were only the question, “When shall these things (of the destruction of Jerusalem) be?” Kik begins his treatment of Matthew...

Rev. Heys is a minister emeritus in the Protestant Reformed Churches. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”  Matthew 11:28 In this verse we find a very comforting truth. Jesus Christ, our Savior, promises us a very important and blessed gift. In our King James version of the Bible we read that Jesus here promises us rest. That surely is a precious and blessed gift. However, the original Greek word which our Savior uses is not the word “rest.” It is the word “refresh.” Christ here promises those who come...