Vol 77 Issue 14

Mr. Wigger is a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. Minister Activities   The Hope PRC in Walker, MI, the calling church for the minister-on-loan to Singapore, called Rev. C. Haak (Bethel, Roselle, IL) to be the next minister to replace Rev. J. Kortering in 2002. Rev. J. Laning, pastor of the Hope PRC in Walker, MI, declined the call he received from the Randolph, WI PRC.  Their new trio is Rev. W. Bruinsma (Kalamazoo, MI), Rev. J. Slopsema (First, G.R.), and Rev. R. VanOverloop (Georgetown, Hud—sonville). Rev. C. Terpstra, pastor of the First PRC in Holland,...

March 7-9, 2001 at Doon, Iowa The March meeting of Classis West was held at Doon Protestant Reformed Church in Doon, Iowa from Wednesday, March 7 through Friday, March 9. An officebearers’ conference was held on Tuesday, the day before Classis. The theme of the conference was “The Minister As the Man of God.” Rev. Steven Key gave the keynote address, which was entitled, “Men Before God: Servants for Jesus’ Sake.” Several ministers also presented papers relating to the general theme of the conference. The conference was attended not only by the delegates to Classis, but also by several members...

* Chapter 24 of Southern Presbyterian Robert L. Dabney’s Evangelical Eloquence. The book is reviewed elsewhere in this issue. The chapter reprinted here is instruction to seminarians concerning congregational prayer. Reprinted with permission. — Ed. You are aware, young gentlemen, that, during the “Dark Ages,” the disgraceful incompetency of the clergy resulted, first, in the introduction of forms of prayer, and, second, in the customary disuse of the divinely-appointed ordinance of preaching. The Reformation reversed all this. It has become the characteristic of the Popish religion that it makes the liturgical service nearly the whole of public worship, and of...

Evangelical Eloquence: A Course of Lectures on Preaching, by Robert L. Dabney. Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1999. 361 pp. $8.99 (paper). [Reviewed by the editor.] More than 20 years ago, a friend gave me the old book of which this is a reprint. The original title was Sacred Rhetoric; or a Course of Lectures on Preaching. I regarded it then as one of the finest, most helpful books on making sermons and preaching that I had ever read. I regard it so still today. No seminarian should enter the ministry without having read it carefully and having taken...

Rev. Kuiper is pastor of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. No figures of speech set forth the sovereignty of God more clearly and more strikingly than those figures which use the terms potter, clay, and vessels. By God’s sovereignty we mean the freedom and the right of God to do what he pleases with every one of His creatures. “Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places” (Ps. 135:6). May He not do what He will with His own (Matt. 20:15)? “Hath not the potter power...

Rev. VanBaren is a minister emeritus in the Protestant Reformed Churches. How’s That Again? That apostasy abounds is beyond dispute. What was held precious after the great Reformation is no longer important to many. The infallibility of Scripture is increasingly denied by those even in main-line denominations and churches. Universal atonement and a universal salvation of all are being taught. Some insist that Christianity is not the only religion and Christ is not the only way of salvation. Others propose that all peoples of all religions will be saved through Christ. He saves those who believe in Him, but He...

Prof. Hanko is professor emeritus of Church History and New Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. Introduction The error of mysticism has never been absent from the church of Christ in the new dispensation. It appeared early in the Montanist movement in the third century and has, in a remarkable way, maintained itself to the present. The church has always had to fight off mysticism. Not a single period in the Middle Ages was without its mystics. Sometimes they were present in multitudes; sometimes only individual mystics kept the flame of mysticism burning. But never did the church free itself...

Gerrit Vos was a pastor in the Protestant Reformed Churches. This is a reprint of a meditation by Rev. Vos, written for the April 15, 1956 issue of the Standard Bearer. Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations He hath made in the earth. Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. Psalm 46:8, 10, 11 Our village received a very special visit by the Lord Christ. It was...

The Holy Spirit Speaking Through the Preaching In his answer to my letter in the November 15, 2000 issue of the Standard Bearer, Rev. Laning maintains that Christ and the Spirit are the ones speaking in the external aspect of the preaching, and he does so on the basis of Romans 10:14. I will try to explain why I believe it is only proper to speak of the church as the one who speaks in the external aspect of the preaching. In the same sense that the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper are not in themselves the very...

* This editorial is part of a longer article on the subject that appears in the spring 2001 issue of the Protestant Reformed Theological Journal. There may be no compromise with the denial of the historicity of Genesis 1-11. But the evolutionary theory of origins necessarily involves the dismissal of the opening chapters as non-historical. Among many others, David Lack, himself an ardent proponent of Darwinian evolution, has stated this bluntly: While Darwinism was widely supposed to contradict the accuracy of the Bible, what it actually challenges is the literal rendering of the first three chapters of Genesis, and if these...