Vol 89 Issue 11

Congregation Activities Reflecting on the words of Psalm 84:1, “How amiable are thy taberna­cles, O Lord of hosts,” we call your attention to the anniversaries of the Georgetown PRC located in Hud­sonville, MI, organized on March 2, 1994, and the Southwest PRC located in Grandville, MI, organized on March 7, 1944. We thank Dr. Brian Decker, a member of the Faith congregation in Jenison, MI, for providing the “News” with the following information. About a year ago the Faith congrega­tion started the practice of singing for their shut-ins. Faith has many shut-ins and members that attend infrequently due to age...

Previous article in this series: January 15, 2013, p. 175. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people; (for he was above all the people;) and when he opened it, all the people stood up: So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading. And all the people went their way to eat, and to drink, and to send portions, and to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared unto them. Nehemiah 8:5, 8, 12 Introduction We are engaged...

Previous article in this series: January 15, 2013, p. 179.   God has given the high calling to parents to dis­cipline their covenant children. The discipline of these precious children is necessary for the salvation of their souls. The discipline of our covenant children is necessary for establishing the truth of God in their lives and to train them to live for His glory. It must establish order and direction and purpose in their lives from earliest childhood on. Discipline is necessary to prepare our sons and daughters to be fit members of the church. Of this glorious church our...

It was the year 1965. The synod of the Protestant Reformed Churches met in session on June 2 at the First Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rap­ids. Was this a monumental meeting of synod? Prob­ably not. But at this synod an eleven-page “new policy” for domestic missions and church extension work was adopted (see Acts of Synod, 1965, pp. 105-115). In years following, this policy faded away into oblivion for one reason or another. But it was a good policy. This now forty-eight-year-old policy stated (p. 112): It is not merely the labor of a missionary to sit back and...

Previous article in this series: January 1, 2013, p. 159.   We are currently examining the history of the office of elder after the time of the apostles in light of this question: how closely to God’s norm regarding the office of elder, which norm is given us in Scripture, did the church of Christ adhere after the time of the apostles? In our last article we saw that the office disappeared in the New Testament church after the first few centu­ries A.D. Now we see that God used the sixteenth cen­tury reformers, and particularly those who advocated what is...

Previous article in this series: January 15, 2013, p. 177.   A ready cheerfulness to give (II Cor. 9:7) and a giving according to how God has prospered us (I Cor. 16:1-2) are important elements in the believer’s giving to needy causes, especially in the church. But are these the only elements in the good giving of benevolence or other gifts, especially to fellow saints who live on the poorer side of an economic gap? In connection especially with missions in developing countries, it should be understood that also the exercise of godly wisdom is an important part of proper...

Previous article in this series: January 1, 2013, p. 163.   Introduction We have seen that our own history as Protestant Reformed Churches demands the development of the Reformed worldview. That is necessary in light of the false accusation often brought against us that we hold to a world-flight mentality that would cause us to withdraw from any active engagement with the world in which we live. Our own history demands development of the Re­formed worldview, secondly, because the erroneous idea of common grace underlies much of what is purported to be a Reformed worldview. There is one man who...

I have a question pertaining to Rev. Spronk’s ar­ticle on “The President’s Polytheism” (Feb. 1, 2013). Wouldn’t it be more accurate to identify President Obama’s religious perspective as pluralistic rather than polytheistic? Religious pluralism is the view that all re­ligions are equally valid. According to religious plural­ists, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism, et. al., are all equally worthy, even equally true religions. In President Obama’s “New Beginning” speech in Cairo, he said: People in every country should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind and the heart and the soul. This...

Previous article in this series: February 15, 2013, p. 220.   As stated in two previ­ous articles, we intend, eventually, to offer a brief analysis of an article found in the Mid-America Journal of Theol­ogy, volume 22, 2011 (MAJT 22) entitled “Calvin’s Treatment of the Offer of the Gospel and Divine Grace,” by J. Mark Beach, a profes­sor of Mid-America Seminary. But before we do that, we wish to draw your attention to a couple of other articles in recent issues of this Journal. The first is “Not Subtle Enough: An Assessment of Modern Scholar­ship on Herman Bavinck’s Reformulation of the...

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath ap­peared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world. Titus 2:11, 12 The teachings concerning gracious salvation are to be believed! And they are to be lived (Tit. 1:1; Tit. 2:1; Tit. 3:8)! The previous verses have shown how Christians are to live those teachings (Tit. 2:2-10). Now (in vv. 11-14) the apostle gives the reason why Christians are to live these teachings, why they are to live in a way that harmonizes with what they believe....