All Articles For Vol 75 Issue 05 12/1/1998

Mr. Wigger is an elder in the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. Mission Activities Wednesday evening, November 4, Revs. B. Gritters and K. Koole left Detroit, MI for a two-week visit to Northern Ireland, the Covenant PRC in Northern Ireland, and our churches’ missionary there, Rev. R. Hanko and his family. While there, the emissaries’ work was to include preaching, visiting the consistory at least two evenings to conduct church visitation and discuss possible sister-church relations, visiting as many of the families as possible, and spending time with the Hankos to minister to their needs. They planned to return,...

The late Homer Hoeksema was professor of Dogmatics and Old Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. Introduction The peculiar character of sacred history comes to the fore immediately when we study the biblical narrative concerning the prediluvial world. For the Scriptures do not furnish us with any kind of account concerning the personal history of Adam and Eve, nor even with an account concerning their family and its history in detail. But it immediately centers our attention on but one event in the lives of their two son, Cain and Abel, and to this one event devotes what might seem,...

Rev. Dick is pastor of Grace Protestant Reformed Church in Standale, Michigan. Fascinating is man’s fascination with the future. It is not even here. It is a nothing. It might never even be—that certain future of man’s imagination. And yet not only are we interested in it, but we are often taken up by it and into it in our thoughts. Powerful nothing, this elusive Future! Never is—never seen, never touched, never now. Yet ever is—calling, gripping, exciting, alluring. One day in gathering darkness it is that wolf—there lurking, soon to pounce we just know, are Future’s fangs. Then another...

Rev. Key is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Randolph, Wisconsin. In our treatment of the names of our Savior, we drifted into the consideration of His threefold office as Mediator. Thus we have looked at the name Christ, the Anointed, as His mediatorial work comes to expression in His work as Prophet, Priest, and King. That leaves us with two other prominent names which we must yet consider. Scripture does reveal still other names of our Mediator, but, other than the names Jesus and Christ, there are but two names that are used frequently in the New Testament...

Rev. VanBaren is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Loveland, Colorado. “Hate Crime” Laws A horrible crime was committed some miles north and west of Loveland—in Laramie, Wyoming. A young man, Matthew Shepard, was tied to a fence in a desolate area and deliberately beaten until he was almost dead. A few days later he did die in the hospital in Ft. Collins. Matthew Shepard was “gay.” This terrible act has been widely reported across the country—and even over the whole world. Doubtlessly, every one of the readers of this article has heard of the event. The two young...

Prof. Decker is professor of Practical Theology in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. I had occasion to give special consideration to this subject in connection with preparing a sermon on this aspect of our Lord’s return. Both the Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession, in their articles about the return of the Lord, focus on this aspect of the Lord’s return almost exclusively. What comfort is it to thee that Christ shall come again to judge the living and the dead? That in all my sorrows and persecutions, with uplifted head I look for the very same person, who before offered...

Prof. Decker is professor of Practical Theology in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. When we take up the matter of the elders’ work of family visitation, we are dealing with a Reformed tradition. Family visitation is a practice not found in other branches of the church. The venerable practical theologian J. J. Van Oosterzee points this out when he writes, “… it is sufficiently evident that house to house visitation may be looked upon as a peculiar fruit of the Reformed soil.”1 Though it makes an interesting study in itself we do not intend to consider the history of family visitation,...

Mr. Oomkes is a member of Byron Center Protestant Reformed Church, Byron Center, Michigan. The 4th bi-annual Family Conference of the British Reformed Fellowship was held in Castlewellan Castle near Newcastle in Northern Ireland, July 25-August 1, 1998. The British Reformed Fellowship are to be commended for their fine efforts to provide the conferences that they have planned. I am convinced that there is no other place in the world that provides such an opportunity as their bi-annual conferences. One thing is for sure, there is no place more appealing to us as a family. The site of this summer’s...

Good Things about the Issue on Kuyper Wonderful, impressive, informative, edifying, and scholarly … and many other good things can be said about the “Special Reformation Issue” of the Standard Bearer (10/15/98). This issue I shall pass on to fellow church members. Unbelievable. The Utrecht church—35,000 members? The Amsterdam church—140,000 members, 136 officebearers, 28 ministers? A mega-church? Great preacher, Reformed, true to the Scriptures, man of God! How could it be? The PRC indebted to Abraham Kuyper? But not without authentic (scriptural) reservations. May the readers comprehend what is written. Henry Doorn Kentwood, MI

* The text of the address at the convocation exercises of the Protestant Reformed Theological Seminary held at the First Protestant Reformed Church of Grand Rapids, MI on September 9, 1998. The first installment appeared in the November 15 issue of the Standard Bearer. Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth...