Vol 91 Issue 04

Classis Activities Classis East reconvened on October 15 at Grandville, MI PRC, where a committee of pre-advice presented their findings concerning four protests originally brought to Classis on September 10. Classis adopted the advice of the majority report to uphold these protests. The official Stated Clerk’s report is found elsewhere in this issue. We are thankful for the diligent labors of Classis East. Minister Activities Rev. Clayton Spronk, pastor of Peace PRC, Lansing, IL had been considering the call extended to him by the congregation of Faith PRC, Jenison, MI. The King of the church has directed Rev. Spronk to...

September 10, 2014 with a continued Session on October 15, 2014 Grandville Protestant Reformed Church   Classis East met in regular session on Wednesday, September 10, 2014 with a continued session on October 15, 2014. All the churches were represented by two delegates. Rev. R. VanOverloop was the chairman for these sessions. What occasioned the continued session on October 15th was the decision of the September 10th session to place four protests against the decision of Classis at its May 2014 relative Article 67 of the Church Order. At the May 2014 meeting, an appeal of a consistory’s decision to...

 Mrs. Crossett is a member of the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church in Northern Ireland. The conference took place in Scotland, July 26-August 2. After agreeing to write this article on the British Reformed Fellowship (BRF) Conference in Scotland, I spent about thirty seconds thinking, “This will be so easy! So much happened and I had such a great time!” I then spend the next two weeks thinking, “This is going to be so hard! So much happened and I had such a great time!” Figuring out how to share this amazing trip with people who have not experienced it, without writing a...

Mr. Kalsbeek is a member of Hope Protestant Reformed Church, Walker, Michigan and retired secretary of the RFPA. 1924 was a good year. On January 21 of that year fifty-three-year-old Vladimir Lenin died. Sadly the police state, command economy, and state propaganda machine he had imposed upon the Russian people did not die with him. In that same year eight months later and half a world away, the RFPA was born. In contrast to the slavery and propaganda machine Lenin imposed, the RFPA was dedicated to freedom: the freedom to write in the Standard Bearer. With the distribution of the...

 This is the edited text of the speech Rev. Spronk gave at the annual meeting of the RFPA on September 25, 2014. Introduction One purpose of this article is to convince you that you must know the history of the church. You must know, and should be interested in, the history of the church that is recorded in the Bible. You must know and should be interested the history of the church after the closing of the canon of Scripture—from the first century A.D. to the present. Maybe you are wondering if it is really necessary to make the case that...

 Previous article in this series: September 15, 2014, p. 488. And they came, every one whose heart stirred him up, and every one whom his spirit made willing, and they brought the Lord’s offering to the work of the tabernacle of the congregation, and for all his service, and for the holy garments. Exodus 35:21 Introduction Having worked through the principles of worship found in God’s Word, we are now engaged in a study of the elements of worship. In this article and the next we take up the element of the offertory, an element that has us replying to...

This article is a continuation of his article on Augustine held over from the October 15, 2014 Special Issue on Augustine. Only Death Dissolves the Marriage Bond Although in his teaching he stressed the permanence of marriage, Augustine recognized that the Scriptures permit divorce. The Scriptures permit divorce on one ground: adultery. “We must understand,” says Augustine, “that a wife is not allowed to put away her husband except for the same reason for which a husband is allowed to put away his wife, that is, fornication.”1 The Lord “obliges a husband to keep his wife if there is no case of...

There is nothing more important than having fellowship with God, and to have fellowship with God we need to know, and know with certainty, what it is that He says to us. Anyone who truly loves God earnestly desires to know what God says to him. If he is taught that there are many errors and contradictions in the Bible, and that therefore there is no way for us to know for sure what God says to us, he will be miserably sad. Yet what a joy will come over him, if he is led to understand that he can...

(An expanded version of this convocation address is being prepared for publication in our seminary’s Theological Journal.) Who will train your and your children’s future ministers? Who will govern the institution where your pastors are trained? This question is more difficult and more important than you might realize—also for the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC), which might surprise you. Will you and your church train them, as you and your church band together with other churches of like precious faith, instituting a denominational, ecclesiastical seminary? Or will an organization, not from the church, and not governed by the church—a para-church organization—train them? The...

Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall no herd be in the stalls; Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. Habakkuk 3:17, 18 At this time of the year the citizens of Canada and the United States observe what is called Thanksgiving Day. On the second Monday of October and the fourth Thursday of November the prime minister...