Vol 75 Issue 09

Mr. Wigger is an elder in the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. Mission Activities The Foreign Mission Committee of our churches has postponed their next scheduled trip to the Philippines until the first two weeks of April. This was necessary in order to get a second minister to go with Rev. R. Moore, pastor of the Hull, IA PRC, and it also gives the FMC and the delegation more time to prepare for the investigating work they will be called upon to do, which apparently will focus on contacts in a different part of the Philippines than the last...

Rev. Kleyn is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Edgerton, Minnesota. It is a fact that the Christian’s life on earth is difficult. Every true child of God knows this from experience. And every true child of God knows this from the Scriptures. God has not promised us an easy life. The Scriptures do not say: “In this world ye shall not have tribulation.” The Word of God does not promise: “All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall not suffer persecution.” The very opposite is true (John 16:33 and II Tim. 3:12). And it is not simply...

Rev. Woudenberg is a minister emeritus in the Protestant Reformed Churches. And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him. Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me. Exodus 4:24, 25 Schilder, in the 24th chapter of his little book, Extra-Scriptural Binding, remarks, “I myself do not want to be either a supralap—sarian or an infralapsarian.” One wonders what he meant. As he certainly knew, the lapsarian...

Rev. Kuiper is pastor of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The words fullness, fill, fill up, used scores of time in both Testaments, indicate a certain measure or amount that has been determined by God in His eternal counsel. Because God works all things according to the counsel of His own will, these predetermined measures are all filled up at the appointed time. It may even be said that when all things are filled up or fulfilled, then history is completed and Christ returns. The God who has determined all these things is Himself the God of...

Martin Swart was an elder for many years in the First Protestant Reformed Church of Grand Rapids, MI. This article was originally an essay that Mr. Swart presented to the Men’s Society of First Church. From all this it is evident that the church has never insisted upon a sharp line of separation among the offices. The reason is obvious. Basically the offices are one, not three. There are not three offices, but a threefold or triple office. Although we recognize three offices as a manner of speaking, we must remember that they are but three aspects of what is...

Prof. Dykstra is professor of Church History and New Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. Solid, Reformed, Christian education is of inestimable value. Believing parents and grandparents, and spiritually minded students give thanks to God for the Christian instruction given in a Reformed school. Yet it is also true that parents and children and the church as a whole are not always so conscious of the specific blessings of the Christian school. It is good for teachers, parents, and students alike to be reminded. First of all, the Christian school is a tremendous gift from God to assist believing parents...

Mr. Lanting, a member of South Holland Protestant Reformed Church, is a practicing attorney. Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod Radio Station Escapes FCC Affirmative Action Demands The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates the licensure of radio stations and scrutinizes applications for license renewals. One such FCC regulation requires license renewal applicants to satisfy equal employment opportunity (EEO) guidelines forbidding discrimination because of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex. Moreover, stations are specifically compelled to “adopt an affirmative action EEO program targeted to minorities and women.” The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod owns and operates an AM station and an...

Rev. Dick is pastor of Grace Protestant Reformed Church in Standale, Michigan. “I am not.” The above are the disciple Peter’s words, recorded in John 18:17. With these words Peter did not deny his existence. He had not just staggered out of the local pub where, with his philosophy club-pub buddies, and by syllogism and sophistry and scotch, he had come to the conclusion that he was only a “figment of the imagination” — or not even that, a “not!” Worse. With the words “I am not” Peter was denying he was a disciple of the Lord Jesus. After the...

Prof. Hanko is professor of Church History and New Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. Apollinaris the Heretic Apollinaris was not, I think, a heretic when first he began to propound his views. A heretic is one who teaches doctrines contrary to those which have been officially established by the church as the truth of Scripture. This may sound somewhat strange, but it must be remembered that it has often happened in the hard work of developing the truth that one of the church’s theologians, in struggling with a difficult theological or exegetical problem, came up with a “solution” to...

The editorial in the previous issue of the Standard Bearer (Jan. 15, 1999, “ECT in the Pitiless Light of the 1998 Bull on Indulgences”) showed that the recent papal bull on indulgences exposes ECT as evangelical capitulation to Rome, sellout of the Reformation, and apostasy to the false church. The influential movement known as Evangelicals and Catholics Together, or ECT, is a threat to the gospel of grace proclaimed in Holy Scripture and recovered by the Reformation of the sixteenth century. ECT is a fellowship of prominent Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants including Richard John Neuhaus and Avery Dulles among...