Vol 74 Issue 16

Mr. Wigger is an elder in the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. School Activities The Association for Protestant Reformed Secondary Education in Lansing, IL, consisting of members from our Chicago area churches, held its annual meeting on March 31. Besides receiving a reportedly large number of new members, they approved the purchase of a 14.5 acre piece of land immediately behind Peace PRC in Lansing and made the momentous decision to begin a PR high school in the fall of 2000, the Lord willing. Let us pray for God’s blessing upon these labors, as the members of this association...

God the Almighty: Power, Wisdom, Holiness, Love, by Donald G. Bloesch. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1995. 329 pp., $24.99 (cloth). [Reviewed by the editor.] The Reformed theologian will read Donald Bloesch’s projected seven-volume set of dogmatics with profit. Bloesch, who describes his stance as “centrist evangelical,” intends to develop an evangelical theology that interacts with contemporary thought without altogether breaking with the theology of the Reformation and the theology of the early, post-apostolic church. Indeed, it is both a strength and a weakness of the book that Bloesch devotes so much space to quoting, referring to, and positioning himself in...

Mr. Frew attends the Free Church of Scotland in Ayr. He is a member of the British Reformed Fellowship. The article appeared first in the Autumn 1995 issue of Focus, a quarterly journal committed to the exposition of the Protestant Reformed faith as expressed in the Westminster Standards and published in England. The article is reprinted here with permission. “No lover of the gospel can conceal from himself the fact that the days are evil. We are willing to make a large discount from the apprehensions on the score of timidity, the caution of age, and the weakness produced by...

Mr. Doezema is secretary of the Domestic Mission Committee. “There is a danger, of course, that we begin to think that our efforts, our program, our machinery, and our funds accomplish the work [of missions]. This is absolutely not the case. The work is the Lord’s, and He alone can and will gather His church. But as surely as we are called to be busy in this work, it is our responsibility to expend our very best efforts in this area of the churches’ calling, in harmony with the means which the Lord has given us. Only then can we...

Rev. Brummel is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church in Edgerton, Minnesota, and the secretary of the Foreign Mission Committee. “There are so many people who don’t have access to the gospel. I would like to find ways to bring the gospel and the Word of God to them. There are many new ideas that can be developed and refined to spread the good news of the gospel. There are countless ways to develop our mission program and utilize the talent we have available to us worldwide. We must figure out the best ways to use our limited resources of...

Rev. Cammenga is pastor of Southwest Protestant Reformed Church in Grandville, Michigan. “The churches shall observe, in addition to the Sunday, also Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension Day, Pentecost, the Day of Prayer, the National Thanksgiving Day, and Old and New Year’s Day.” Church Order, Article 67. History of Article 67 The content of Article 67 does not express the early opinion of the Reformers with respect to the observance of the religious holidays. Well known is the opposition of men like Calvin, Farel, Zwingli, and Knox to the celebration of the myriad of festal days counted sacred by Roman...

Prof. Dykstra is professor of Church History and New Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. God’s covenant is established with believers and their children. This truth is not only the heart of Reformed doctrine and a great comfort to believing parents, it is also the basis of Reformed, Christian education. That God establishes His covenant with believers and their seed means that children are in God’s covenant. Reformed believers confess with the Heidelberg Catechism in Lord’s Day 27 that infants, “as well as the adult, are included in the covenant and church of God.” This promise of God profoundly affects...

Filling Needs I am gratified to have the Standard Bearer coming steadily. In particular, I was blessed by the editorial, “Where Are the Theologians of the Cross?” (SB, April 1, 1998). From Luther’s words you gleaned and arranged an interesting, cogent reminder on a very crucial issue. The SB does things like this with regularity. It fills needs. Lewis Price Batesville, AR

Very much on the foreground in Reformed circles in North America of late is the subject of the “Reformed Worldview.” The reason is that 1998 is the 100th anniversary of Abraham Kuyper’s influential lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary on Calvinism as a worldview. Recently, a conference was held at Princeton on the theme, “Religion, Pluralism and Public Justice: Abraham Kuyper’s Legacy for the 21st Century.” The sponsors were Princeton Seminary, the Free University of Amsterdam (founded by Kuyper), Calvin College, and the Center for Public Justice. At this conference, theological pygmies and apostates from Harvard, Princeton, and Amsterdam contented themselves...

Rev. Hanko is a minister emeritus in the Protestant Reformed Churches. “And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast. The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus.” John 12:20, 23 “We would see Jesus.” As Jesus’ public ministry drew to a close, certain Greeks came to Jerusalem to keep the Passover feast. There they approached Philip with a significant request. Actually we know very little about them. The fact that they are called Greeks might mean that they came from...