Vol 90 Issue 20

Young Adult Activities Once again this summer the Young Adult Society of the Lynden, WA PRC, with the help of their congregation, hosted their annual Young Adults Retreat on June 30 through July 3 at the Warm Beach Camp, about an hour’s drive from Lynden in Stanwood, WA. The theme of this year’s retreat was, “Wisdom: A Gift from God.” Rev. Ron Hanko, pastor in Lynden, spoke on Monday evening from God’s Word found in James 1:5, 6 on “Asking for Wisdom,” and Rev. Allen Brummel, pastor at Heritage PRC in Sioux Falls, SD, spoke Tuesday evening from Ephesians 5:15...

The Psalms in Worship: A Series of Convention Papers Bearing Upon the Place of the Psalms in the Worship of the Church, Editor: John McNaugher, United Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1907. Available as a Google eBook. [Reviewed by Joshua Hoekstra.] Have you ever wondered where your Psalter came from? Why did the world need a new Psalter? What issues surrounded the creation of our Psalter? Who wrote these lyrics? What were they thinking when they wrote these lyrics? Lastly, and most commonly thought when struggling with an uncommon song, who picked this tune? Psalms in Worship addresses all of these...

“And the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do; the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their commandment.” (I Chronicles 12:32) “So that will be the burden of this rubric: to scrutinize the times in which we live in order that we may grow in our understanding of the times, and consider what we ought to do.” That quote from the first article written for this rubric back in September of 2002 has governed the subsequent 43 articles that have found their...

Previous article in this series: July 2014, p. 422. Introduction The Bible is the word of God. This is what the Bible says about the Bible. In our previous installment in this rubric we began our consideration of the testimony of Psalm 119 to the truth that the Bible is the word of God. This is a very unique psalm. In the book that has the most chapters (150 psalms), this is the longest chapter (psalm). It is a chapter that magnifies the Bible as God’s word. In nearly every verse, reference is made to God’s word: His law, testimonies,...

Most of us are familiar with the charge of homophobia, that we Christians, allegedly, have an irrational fear of, hatred for, and intolerance toward homosexuals. We are labelled thus because we have the audacity to teach that homosexuality is sin. Much has been seen in recent years—bakers sued because they would not make cakes for “gay marriages”; florists and photographers sued because they refused to participate in such ceremonies; and Christian street preachers arrested for calling homosexuality a sin. A new phobia controversy erupted in Belfast, Northern Ireland some months ago—Islamophobia. Pastor James McConnell is the septuagenarian preacher of Ulster’s...

Previous article in this series: May 15, 2014, p. 368. Ecclesiastes 5:8-12

Thank you for the special issue on the Psalter (April 1, 2014). I always appreciate the special issues, and this one was especially dear to my heart. I read with interest all the articles and benefited from them. I can imagine the editorial committee sitting down last summer and coming up with eight to ten different topics on this subject, and I can only hope that at that meeting Prof. Dykstra was assigned the unfortunate topic “Improving the Psalter.” But when a summary of the daily acts of Synod, Day 4, 2014, was handed out in the churches and I...

A most interesting article. Herman Hoeksema Was Right (On the Three Points That Really Mattered). Surprising even. Noteworthy because of who wrote it. Not, as one might expect, a Protestant Reformed theologian reiterating that H. Hoeksema was right back in 1924, and that the Christian Reformed Synod got it wrong. Nothing newsworthy there. This is an article written by Dr. John Bolt, professor of Systematic Theology in Calvin Seminary no less—not exactly an institution that has been known as a source of articles siding with Herman Hoeksema on various controversial issues. Certainly not when it comes to the issue of...

And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. II Timothy 3:15 Timothy had known the Holy Scriptures from childhood. What a blessing! May the same be said for all our children. Timothy was an evangelist whom Paul had assigned to labor in the church of Ephesus. Paul wrote this second epistle to Timothy to instruct him in his work. Among other things, Paul was concerned with evil men and seducers, who would grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. How...