Vol 78 Issue 02

Mr. Wigger is a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. Congregation Activities   Words cannot adequately describe the events of September 11 in New York City and Washington D.C., and I certainly am not going to try to do that here.  I will be content to leave that to the experts. After all, the events of that day have little to do with church news, except that because of those attacks the three congregations in the Hudsonville, MI area, Georgetown, Hudsonville, and Trinity, met together that night at Georgetown for an hour of prayer, the reading of God’s Word,...

September 12, 2001 Kalamazoo , Michigan Classis East met in regular session on Wednesday, September 12, 2001 at the Kalamazoo PRC. Noticeably absent due to the terrorist attacks on New York City on September 11th was the elder delegate from Covenant PRC, Wyckoff, NJ. The delegates from the newly-organized congregation of Trinity PRC were present at classis for the first time. Rev. M. VanderWal was the chair of this session. According to Article 66 of the Church Order, classis decided to proclaim that Sunday, September 16th, would be a Day of Prayer in response to the calamities our nation experienced...

September 5-6, 2001 at Hull, Iowa The regular September meeting of Classis West was held at Hull Protestant Reformed Church in Hull, Iowa. Classis met for two days, beginning on Wednesday, September 5 and concluding its work around 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 6. An officebearers’ conference was held on Tuesday, the day before classis. The theme of the conference was “The Covenant and Missions.” Rev. Wilbur Bruinsma gave the keynote address entitled, “God’s Covenantal Method of Gathering the Church.” Several ministers also presented papers relating to the general theme of the conference. The conference was attended by the delegates...

Rev. Brummel is pastor of Cornerstone Protestant Reformed Church in Dyer, Indiana. Did you know that… By his death, Martin Luther had written more than 60,000 pages, yet he hoped that “all my books would disappear and the Holy Scriptures alone be read.” Luther knew most of the New Testament and large sections of the Old Testament by heart. Luther said: “A simple layman armed with Scripture is to be believed above a pope or cardinal without it.” Exploring Luther on Scripture is a rich field of study. Under Luther’s leadership Sola Scriptura became a rallying cry of the Reformation....

Prof. Dykstra is professor of Church History and New Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. Certainly the single best-known work of Martin Luther is The Bondage of the Will. This masterpiece deserves the honorable position it holds not only in the body of Luther’s works, but also in the writings of all the Reformers. It sets forth the truth of God’s sovereignty in salvation, and eliminates any possibility that man contributed to his own salvation. This is the heart of Luther’s theology. This is the heart of the great Reformation. And this is the heart of the Reformed truth still...

Rev. Key is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Hull, Iowa. The history of Dr. Martin Luther and his influence on preaching is well worth considering. The Reformation took root, after all, by the restoration of faithful preaching, with Martin Luther and the other Reformers leading the way. Although it would be an overstatement to say that preaching had been entirely lost prior to the Reformation, it is true that there were very few faithful preachers left in the church, and preaching itself had certainly fallen on hard times. The element of proclamation, the “thus saith the Lord” which...

Rev. Bruinsma is pastor of Kalamazoo Protestant Reformed Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Martin Luther loved children! His Table Talks are filled with remarks on children. “Children are the most delightful pledges in a loving marriage. They are the best wool on the sheep.” Or again, “How great a joy posterity affords a man! It certainly is the most delightful joy of parents.” That Luther could make such statements is amazing, since the first thirty-eight years of his own life were lived under the conviction that as a monk he had to remain celibate. It was not until Luther was forty-two...

Rev. Hanko is a minister in the Protestant Reformed Churches. Entering Paradise: The Origin of Luther’s Doctrine It is impossible to talk about Luther’s doctrine of justification without also talking about Luther’s experience of justification. It is never the doctrine which comes first but the experience and enjoyment of the blessings of God. This was especially and remarkably true in the case of Luther. His doctrine of justification was the fruit of his coming by grace and by faith to know his own justification before God. He tells the story of his own spiritual pilgrimage: Though I lived as a...

Rev. Eriks is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Loveland, Colorado. Luther Becomes a Monk   Martin Luther was born November 10, 1483, in Eisleben in Prussian Saxony. His parents were very poor, but they were hard-working and pious members of the Roman Catholic Church. In home and in school, Luther was taught to be a good Roman Catholic. His parents taught Luther to pray to God and the saints, to revere the church, and to fear devils and witches. In school, Luther learned the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and several Latin and German hymns. In 1501, at...

It was said of famed Luther-scholar Karl Holl that he regarded John Calvin as “Luther’s only truly congenial disciple.” This high estimation of Calvin shocked the Lutherans, who have always nursed a grudge against Calvin and Calvinists. It might have surprised Luther, who was inclined to lump Calvin with the despised “sacramentarians.” Luther and Calvin were contemporaries, although Calvin was twenty-six years younger than Luther. For about ten years, until Luther’s death in 1546, they labored together on behalf of the Reformation, Luther in Germany and Calvin in Geneva and Strasbourg. They never met. They did not even correspond. The...