All Articles For Vol 76 Issue 05 12/1/1999

In one of our weekly magazines (Newsweek) we read the following: On one side of the theological fence stands William Floyd, retired New York real-estate dealer, descendant and namesake of a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Twenty-seven years ago, after reading Thomas Paine’s “The Age of Reason,” he quit Christianity and began editing a freethinking journal called The Arbitrator. He is now a member of Dr. John Haynes Holmes’ Community Church in Manhattan. On the other side of the fence stands Dr. Harry Rimmer, Presbyterian evangelist. Nineteen years ago he incorporated a Research Science Bureau, to investigate man’s origin...

Mr. Wigger is an elder in the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. Minister Activities Our PR readers may remember back in the summer when an announcement appeared in your bulletins asking for your help with plans to commemorate Rev. C. Hanko’s 70 years in the ministry. We can report that, thanks to your contributions, an album of memories was put together and given to Rev. Hanko on September 24, the 70th anniversary. In response to that observation, Rev. Hanko writes: “I wish to thank the Hudsonville consistory for so thoughtfully remembering my 70 years in the ministry. I also...

Reformed Confessions: Theology from Zurich to Barmen, by Jan Rohls. Tr. John Hoffmeyer. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998. xxiii + 311pp. $35 (cloth). [Reviewed by the editor] To read Reformed Confessions is to receive a sound, thorough education in the theology of Reformed orthodoxy. Following the order of the six loci of dogmatics (although strangely there is no treatment of eschatology), Jan Rohls sets forth the teaching of the Reformed creeds on all the leading doctrines of Scripture. The book is a comparative study of the creeds.

Mr. Kamps is the secretary of the Board for the Reformed Free Publishing Association. October 7, 1999 Dear RFPA Members and Friends, We have recently completed another year at the RFPA, where the gracious provision by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was clearly evident. We now look forward to beginning our 76th year of publishing the Standard Bearer and our 33rd year of publishing books. Generations of Protestant Reformed believers have found blessing in the witness of the RFPA, as well as many believers in foreign lands and various denominations. Our witness is not always and everywhere heeded, but...

Rev. Kleyn is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Edgerton, Minnesota. Recently Rev. Rodney Miersma and I returned from a journey halfway around the world to the country of the Philippines. Traveling there on behalf of the Foreign Mission Committee of our Protestant Reformed Churches, we visited contacts in four cities: Manila, Daet, Cagayan de Oro, and Bacolod. We both felt it a great blessing and privilege that we were able to make this trip. It was especially a blessing to meet and to fellowship with people of God who, though far from us in miles, are one with...

Mrs. Lubbers is a wife and mother in the Protestant Reformed Church of South Holland, Illinois. This is a set of 34 speeches given to the South Holland Ladies’ Auxiliary on October 19, 1999 by the first and second graders of South Holland Protestant Reformed Christian School. To be read to your children and grandchildren. The Protestant church has always held Martin Luther in esteem. The Reformed church holds a special warm and grateful place in its heart for him, owing its very heartbeat to the work which God accomplished through Martin Luther. It is satisfying that the world also...

Rev. Gritters is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. The letter arrived. You’ve been nominated for the office of elder. After careful thought, you let the deadline pass for declining the nomination. At the congregational meeting, the members chose you. I thank God for you. (The others were not elected. In His inscrutable wisdom, the Lord did not appoint the others, but appointed you to the work of elder.) Ordination has taken place. The questions have been asked: “Do you feel in your hearts…? Do you believe the books…? Do you reject the heresies…? Do you promise…...

Prof. Hanko is professor of Church History and New Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. This is the second part of the speech delivered at the Convocation of the Protestant Reformed Theological School on September 7, 1999. And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none. Ezekiel 22:30 Men For The Gap God is pictured in the text as casting about for men who will stand in the gaps. It is clear from the context...

At the end of a year, and much more the end of a millennium, it is perfectly proper that we encourage ourselves with the thought of the end of the world. Not as though this is an occasional thing with us! But the end of a year and the close of a millennium impress upon us the swift passing of time. And time is hurrying toward its goal: the coming of Jesus Christ. Not that there is any special significance for the end of the world in the arrival of a year with three zeros. 2000 has no more—but also...

Rev. Miersma is pastor of Immanuel Protestant Reformed Church of Lacombe, Alberta, Canada. This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. I John 1:5-7 The Word of life, Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God....