Vol 83 Issue 11

Mr. Wigger is a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. Mission Activities  Worship services for the newly organized Heritage PR Fellowship of Sioux Falls, S.D. were held for the first time on Sunday, January 28. These worship services are under the sponsorship of our denomination’s Domestic Mission Committee and will be under the supervision of the Edgerton, MN PRC. Sunday morning Rev. R. Kleyn, pastor of the Trinity PRC in Hudsonville, MI, led the first service, preaching on I Thessalonians 1:5-10, “Sounding Out the Word,” emphasizing that for local evangelism to be effective we need faithful preaching and...

Mr. Minderhoud is a teacher in Covenant Christian High School and a member of Hope Protestant Reformed Church, Walker, Michigan. God has ordained that life on this earth requires many creatures or substances working together—multitudes of parts that must be in a balanced relationship one with the other. This harmony is necessary because of the organic interdependence of all living things. It is a harmony and beauty that bears the mark of its Creator—a Creator who is the one only simple Being, who is His attributes, full of harmony, beauty, and life within the triune Being. The interrelatedness of the...

Reprinted from When Thou Sittest In Thine House, by Abraham Kuyper, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan. 1929. Used by permission of Eerdmans Publishing Co. Family  Your home naturally opens itself to two classes of people. There are two kinds of folks who mingle in your narrower environment. There are two groups of persons which, though they do not belong to your immediate family, are inseparable from the family-life: first, your kindred, and in the second place, your intimate friends. Such the Scripture calls these two groups, and when Captain Cornelius, who was in garrison with the legion Italia at Caesarea, as...

Rev. denHartog is pastor of Southwest Protestant Reformed Church in Grandville, Michigan. Previous article in this series: February 15, 2007, p. 230. The great missionary journeys of Paul are the amazing and awe-inspiring biblical example of the beginning of the preaching of the gospel to the nations. What great zeal was manifest in the ministry of the apostle of the Lord! What an example for all preachers! Paul went to the ends of the earth. He endured great hardships and persecution. He faced fearful enemies, who often threatened his very life. He knew very little ease and luxury in life....

Rev. Laning is pastor of Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Walker, Michigan. That circumcision is the Old Testament counterpart of Christian baptism some Reformed Baptists will acknowledge. The two signs, they will admit, seal the same covenant promise concerning salvation from sin through the blood of Jesus Christ. But they then say that there was another covenant promise that came only to Israel, and that does not come also to the church today. This, they say, was a promise of blessings that were “earthly, material and temporal.” In other words, they teach that Israel had a promise of both material...

Rev. Dick is pastor of Grace Protestant Reformed Church in Standale, Michigan.

Prof. Hanko is professor emeritus of Church History and New Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. Introduction Our concluding study of heresies that have appeared in the history of the church of Christ is a brief survey of more modern heresies that are present in the church in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The task of choosing which ought to be included in these articles is not an easy one, and the choices we have made are, admittedly, somewhat arbitrary. The difficulties are especially two. The first is that heresies are without number in post-Reformation times. If we were to...

Rev. Kleyn is pastor of Trinity Protestant Reformed Church in Hudsonville, Michigan. Religious Freedom and Homosexual Marriage In our country, we often take freedom of religion for granted. There is no threat to individual safety when we identify ourselves as Christians. We are free to use the Scriptures and all their teachings in speaking to others and in showing them the way of life and the way of sin and death. In our homes we may teach our children from the Bible. As groups of believers we may gather in public worship. There is no fear of intrusion or persecution...

Thankful for the Psalter I write in response to Rev. Daniel Kleyn’s article on “Congregational Singing,” as it appeared in the November 1, 2006 issue of the SB. I would like to say that I am so thankful that our PR churches are psalm-singing churches. I am thankful, first, because our Psalter is based on the God-inspired psalms, which makes the songs God-glorifying and God-praising. Second, I am thankful that we have a psalm-based Psalter so that we as adults and children may sing and memorize these psalms, which are the most important songs in our spiritual lives. What a blessing...

Previous article in this series: February 15, 2007, p. 220. The doctrine of a conditional covenant makes the covenant of grace to be some sort of agreement between two parties—God and man. According to this view of the covenant, God promises to be the God of the covenant people and to bless them with salvation. However, God makes demands upon His covenant people. The people must believe God’s Word and obey His law. This is the condition they must fulfill in the covenant, either to ratify the covenant or to maintain it (that is, cause the covenant to be continued...