Vol 72 Issue 20

Mr. Wigger is a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. Minister Activities Rev. and Mrs. Mahtani, of the Trinity PRC in Houston, TX, were blessed with the birth of their seventh child, a healthy baby girl, named Mary, born on July 10. Our congregation in Doon, IA formed a trio consisting of Candidate Richard Smit and Revs. Audred Spriensma and Arie denHartog. Voting was held on July 14 with a call being extended to Candidate Smit, and he has since accepted that call. On July 24th, the congregation of the Kalamazoo, MI PRC met and extended a...

Our Reformed Church Service Book, by G. Van Rongen. Neerlandia, Alberta, Canada or Pella, Iowa: Inheritance Publications, 1995. 250 pages. $13.90 (U.S.). (paper). [Reviewed by Prof. R. D. Decker.] This book is about another book, viz., the Book of Praise: Anglo-Genevan Psalter. This latter contains the synodically approved Psalm texts and tunes and hymns, the Ecumenical Creeds, the Three Forms of Unity, Orders of Worship, Liturgical Forms, Form Prayers, and Church Order of the Canadian (and American) Reformed Churches. In Our Reformed Church Service Book Rev. Van Rongen, an emeritus minister of these churches, gives a history of the English...

Rev. VanBaren is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Loveland, Colorado. The Only Name Whereby We Are Saved In the June issue of this magazine, we quoted a letter from a minister in the Reformed Church who claimed that salvation was possible outside of Christianity (“God is truly known in a saving way by others in their own respective religious traditions”). One might wistfully think that such a view is rare — at least in the Reformed community. Sadly, that is not true today. The Reformed Ecumenical Council, meeting at Calvin College in Grand Rapids this past June, has...

Mrs. Lubbers is a wife and mother in the Protestant Reformed Church of South Holland, Illinois. “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.”  Ephesians 5:11 A good sturdy outside door on our house is important. Because of the increasingly high incidence of burglary in our society, this door functions more as a barricade than an entranceway. The door is usually solid steel; the window, if any, very high so no thug can break the glass and easily unlock the door. Often it features a dead bolt. No easy access with a credit card...

Prof. Hanko is professor of Church History and New Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. Introduction Reformers are strange people. They do not seem at first glance to be cut out for the role. As a matter of fact, if one measures their abilities by human standards they are the world’s worst people for the work into which they are thrust. The reason for this is that the reformation of the church is God’s work. We confess in our Heidelberg Catechism that the Son of God not only gathers His church, but He also defends and preserves it. That is,...

Rev. Key is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Randolph, Wisconsin. As a unique creature who was created in the image of God, man was also created a covenant creature. Adam was created God’s covenant friend, to reflect the blessed friendship and fellowship of God’s own covenant life. The truth of the covenant is a truth that we count precious. To us it is an essential element of our Protestant Reformed heritage as we maintain the truth of Holy Scripture. The truth of the covenant is, in fact, as a golden thread that runs through the whole of Scripture...

Transcript of speech delivered at the graduation of Richard Smit and Cheah Fook Meng, on June 17, 1996. It is in the context of Christ-centered preaching that we must understand the discussion over redemptive-historical preaching vs. exemplaristic preaching. In an important writing on this subject (The History of Redemption in the Preaching of the Gospel, by B. Holwerda) the author states that really the origin of redemptive-historical preaching is to be found in “an ongoing discussion and debate which stirred the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands during the 1930s.” It is the author’s contention that during this crucial period of...

Mr. Lanting, a member of South Holland Protestant Reformed Church, is a practicing attorney. “Defendant Nichols had the right, under the religious accommodation provision of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, to make a substituted charitable payment in lieu of joining or financially supporting the labor union.” Machinists & Aerospace Workers, Lodge 751 v. Boeing, 662 F.Supp. 1069 (1986). In the past, many evangelical churches condemned labor union affiliation as incompatible with membership in the church of Christ. But almost all denominations today, including most in the Reformed and Presbyterian tradition, have capitulated to “pew pressure” and quietly allow...

* This article was originally a public lecture on Christian education given, apparently, at the First Protestant Reformed Church of Grand Rapids, Michigan by its pastor, Rev. Herman Hoeksema. Evidently, the speech was given shortly after World War I. It is from the Martin Swart collection of handwritten transcriptions of sermons and speeches by Herman Hoeksema. It is now published for the first time. The general subject and, particularly, the specific reference to the Christian school make this speech fitting at this time of the year, when we resume the training of our children in catechism and in the Christian...

Last year there was a merger of two religious publishing organizations. They were not publishing giants by man’s reckoning. The merger had no impact on the stock market. The religious press took no note of the event. But the merger is of interest to the readers of the Standard Bearer. It has importance because it affects the publishing of Reformed books. At the annual meeting of the RFPA in September, 1995, two organizations carrying the name RFPA merged. Although both went by the same name, they were separate organizations. The original RFPA was formed in 1924 in connection with the...