Vol 88 Issue 13

School Activities The Nex Gen fund-raising com­mittee for Genesis PR School in Lacombe, AB, Canada sponsored their first annual Winter Cup Pond Hockey Tournament on Saturday, February 25. In addition to the day of hockey, Nex Gen also provided a Toonie Town for their younger, non-hockey playing guests. For our non-Canadian readers, Toonie Town is the name the fundraisers gave to what we would commonly call a Kiddy Carni­val, which costs two dollars (a toonie) for admission, so the name seemed to work. Toonie Town included all sorts of interesting games for the kids to play. Ice fishing was in...

New (and Old) Noteworthy Books Communion with God: Reformed Spirituality, Herman Hoek­sema; edited by David J. Engelsma. Reformed Free Publishing Association (rfpa.org), 2011. 352 pp. $28.95 (hardcover). This is the anticipated follow-up volume of meditations (volume one was Peace for the Troubled Heart, 2010) originally written (some in Dutch) in the Standard Bearer by noted Reformed pastor-theologian and co-founder of the Protestant Reformed Churches, Herman Hoeksema. This marvelous collection focuses on the believer’s “sweet” covenant fellowship with the triune God in Jesus Christ. The chapters are arranged into three parts: Com­munion with God, Christian Experience, and Christian Activity. Great devotional...

One of the richest blessings that God has or­dained from the beginning for the happiness of man is marriage and the covenant home. God created man with a deep need for companionship and friendship. It was not good for him to be alone. God gave to man a great and precious gift, therefore, when He created woman for him. According to Scripture, man and woman were both created in the image and likeness of God. They were created able to know and to love God and also to love one another. They were in this respect made equal. In chapter...

In Chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes, Solomon contemplates God’s sovereign providence, God’s counsel in time, as it shapes the life of men under the sun. Man senses that work of God, but walks over against it in darkness. This is brought out yet more fully in what he says in this section. Verse 15 ends on the note, “God requireth that which is past,” or more literally “seeks what is pursued.” In the activities of men, God is a righteous judge. In His counsel and purpose, and in His providence, God judges the works of men in time and eternity. Seeing...

Rev. Dr. Robert Godfrey of the United Reformed Churches (URC) has a dream. He has written about this dream. He first wrote about his dream in 1997 in a Reformed periodical, the Outlook, and again in 2005 when that article was republished in Modern Reformation. Now he is speaking about his dream. At the thirty-seventh meeting of the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC) held in November 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Godfrey, as the invited keynote speaker, addressed the council on the topic “A Reformed Dream.” He also spoke on the subject in May 2011 at a meeting...

We have considered the fact that the life we have in Christ is higher than the life Adam had before the fall. Should that not lead us to think about whether it was God’s plan all along that Adam would fall, so that Christ would come, and raise us to the higher life that is found only in Him? Indeed, it was God’s plan. In fact, everything that takes place does so according to God’s perfect plan. God’s will always accomplished Every event in history is something that God has de­creed will take place. In eternity, God ordained every­thing that...

Hushai, David’s faithful servant and counselor, used the picture of a bear robbed of her cubs to describe David’s supposed rage over his recent losses in order to discourage Absalom from pursuing immediately after David (II Sam. 17:8). For who would be so foolish as to go after such a one as that, rashly and unprepared? The unparalleled ferocity and rage of a mother bear who has been prematurely separated from her cubs is used in Scripture to picture a fierce sense of anger. A mother bear will become vio­lent very quickly if she perceives any danger to her cubs...

One of the main goals in foreign mission work must be to establish indigenous churches, churches that are able to exist on their own. The goal must be churches that are self-governing, self-propagating, and self-supporting. In a previous article (November 15, 2011, p. 90) we looked at what it means to establish churches that are self-governing. Now we consider the second characteristic of an indigenous church, namely, self-propagating. What is a self-propagating church? Every church of Christ on earth is called to carry out the great commission. Every church must go forth into the world and preach the gospel. Beginning...

By this time, school boards have offered contracts for teaching positions in our Protestant Reformed Christian schools. Decisions have been made to sign those contracts. Most positions have likely been filled. If that is true, we may be very thankful. But there may yet be open positions. Of that, some schools will be painfully aware. And more vacancieswill certainly be created by retirements, female teachers becoming “keepers at home,” and the ever-expanding number of classrooms in  our growing schools. There is also the encouraging creation or expansion of special education programs, which take more teachers and special training. We need good Christian school teachers. Many of them....

And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him. Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me. Matthew 28:9-10 In the 40 days after His resurrection Jesus appeared ten times to His disciples. The purpose of these appearances was especially threefold. First, they were to prove to the disciples that He had truly risen. Secondly, they were to instruct the disciples concerning the nature of His resurrection....