All Articles For Vol 76 Issue 10 2/15/2000

Mr. Wigger is a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. Minister Activities Rev. C. Hanko, one of our churches’ emeriti ministers, was admitted in early January to a hospital in Grand Rapids, MI for pneumonia. After about one week there, he moved to Brookcrest Nursing Home in Grandville, MI, where, as of this writing, he continues to make steady improvement. Let us continue to pray for him, as well as all our ministers, missionaries, and professors. Rev. Doug Kuiper, pastor of the Byron Center, MI PRC, has declined the call he had been considering to serve as...

Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms, by Stanley J. Grenz, David Guretzki & Cherith Fee Nordling. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999. 122 pp. $6.99 (paper). [Reviewed by the editor.] This small book (it really does fit in one’s pocket) will prove extraordinarily useful to the reading layman and the student of theology, whether seminarian or minister. It consists of a concise description of more than 300 important theological terms. These terms include doctrines, e.g., amillennialism, postmillennialism, and premillennialism; names of many prominent theologians, both ancient and contemporary, e.g., Augustine and Karl Barth; church assemblies, e.g., the Synod of Dort (“biased...

Rev. VanderWal is pastor of Covenant Protestant Reformed Church in Wyckoff, New Jersey. The great King of the Jews demands a certain preparation before His visitation to His people. The way must be prepared. A messenger must announce the coming of this Dignitary, and arrangements must be made. Christ is coming, and John the Baptist prepared His way. It is the work of the forerunner to prepare His way, making all the necessary arrangements. But what peculiar arrangements we find! And what a contrast with earthly royalty! Certainly, an earthly king will send an entourage preceding his personal appearance. Such...

Rev. Woudenberg is a minister emeritus in the Protestant Reformed Churches. … if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work. Romans 11:6 The controversy of 1953 centered in many ways in the word “conditions” and the propriety of its use regarding the covenant of grace. This is to be regretted, for that question touched only obliquely on the heart of what this whole matter was actually about, as some tried repeatedly to point out....

Mrs. Meyer is a member of Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Walker, Michigan. As we have seen in a previ- ous article, “in” is a tittle of a word that is worth our consideration. The supreme object of this little preposition is found, always and ultimately, in only One — Jesus Christ our Lord. It is in Christ that we live and move and have our being. And it is only in Him. This is true for us and for our children. And this has implications for us as we raise our children, for we must be living as those...

Rev. Laning is pastor of the Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Walker, Michigan. With this article we begin the fourth section of Reformed dogmatics, known as soteriology. Soteriology is the study of how God saves each individual whom He has chosen. Whereas the next section, known as ecclesiology, deals with how God saves the church as a whole, this section deals specifically with the individual child of God and considers how God delivers him from death and raises him to a heavenly life in Christ. Although Christ saved us almost two thousand years ago when He died for us, the...

Rev. VanBaren is a minister emeritus in the Protestant Reformed Churches. “False Prophets; Real Profits” The above title is one taken from an article of P. Andrew Sandlin appearing in 2000 WorldNetDaily.com. I’ll quote from that later. The reference is to the “prophecies” of many Christians who insisted that the Y2K bug would create havoc in the world and bring an end to civilization as we know it. They have entered the 21st century with “egg on their faces.” (Of course, they have still plenty of additional eggs on hand for the disasters they so firmly believed and proclaimed would...

Prof. Hanko is professor of Church History and New Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. Introduction The most important institution in the Middle Ages, roughly the time from the death of Augustine to the Protestant Reformation (430-1517), was the Roman Catholic papacy. It dominated all the history of the Western Mediterranean world and Europe, and its influence was inescapable in the Eastern church until the great schism between east and west in 1054. The papacy determined, more than any other institution, political, economic, and ecclesiastical life during this millennium. But the man who, more than any other, shaped the medieval...

There is a time to laugh and dance in the life of the individual child of God. God’s own Wisdom teaches this in Ecclesiastes 3:4. When a child marries in the fear of the Lord, the godly parent laughs with a joy that draws from the glad heart of God. As the joy of the laughing Israelite manifested itself in a merry skipping and leaping before the Lord, so does the joy of the thankful parent necessarily show itself in the various activities of the wedding reception, among family and friends: the greetings, the fellowshipping, the singing, the eating and drinking....

Rev. Slopsema is pastor of First Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. But now saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. Isaiah 43:1 &2 Isaiah was the prophet of God to Judah in her apostasy. We...