Volu 101 Issue 02

minister emeritus in the Protestant Reformed Churches and member of Loveland PRC in Loveland, Colorado The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms—Deuteronomy 33:27a At the time that I write this meditation, I have been sitting at the bedside of my godly mother as God prepares to take her to her heavenly home. After 89 years of traversing this earth, from childhood running around her dad’s greenhouses and helping to care for her younger siblings, through 70 years of marriage, giving birth to three sons and providing the faithful nurture of a godly mother and grandmother,...

professor of Practical Theology in the Protestant Reformed Theological Seminary and member of First PRC in Grand Rapids, Michigan A few years ago, I went to the doctor to inform him of an ailment. The good doctor prescribed for me the necessary medication, one that I had taken before without experiencing any side effects. But this time it was different. I took the medication and shortly thereafter experienced a reaction that was worse than the initial ailment. I went back to the doctor and, after hearing my plight, he prescribed a different medication. The same thing happened. After a third...

pastor of the Wingham PRC in Wingham, Ontario, Canada Earlier this fall, children across the land went back to school. Most of them go to a public school. But a rising number are going to private schools, or are being homeschooled. The theology editor at Christianity Today, Stefani McDade, recently wrote that the debate about Christians using the public schools “has come back to the foreground of our public life in recent years.” She cites a Gospel Coalition debate in which the popular evangelical author and speaker Jen Wilkin used “faith-led arguments” to promote Christians sending their children to public...

pastor of the Wingham PRC in Wingham, Ontario, Canada In February of 2023, I wrote an article entitled “Young, Restless, and Reformed today” about the current resurgence of interest in Reformed theology that began in the early 2000s. In April of 2023, I wrote about what was called a revival at Asbury University, a school founded by Wesleyan/Methodist men in the 1800s. In August of the same year, I wrote about a split in the United Methodist Church and the formation of the new Global Methodist Church. Continuing in that lane, I direct your attention to a recent article claiming...

pastor of the Wingham PRC in Wingham, Ontario, Canada Canada is further along in secularization than the United States. I recently read and discussed with a group of Reformed pastors a book by Ewan Goligher, a Christian professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, entitled How Should We Then Die? A Christian  Response  to  Physician-Assisted  Death. Without endorsing everything he writes, I recommend this book if you are interested in understanding more about the topic. This is a hot topic in Canada right now. Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), as they call it, has been legal here for a...

professor emeritus of Dogmatics and Old Testament in the Protestant Reformed Theological Seminary and member of Southwest PRC in Wyoming, Michigan The Will of God Is Explained for Us in the Law of God. We teach that the will of God is explained for us in the law of God, what He wills or does not will us to do, what is good and just, or what is evil and unjust. Therefore, we confess that the law is good and holy. The twelfth chapter of the Second Helvetic Confession (SHC) deals with the Reformed view of the place of the...

pastor of Trinity PRC in Hudsonville, Michigan Previous article in this series: September 1, 2024, p. 492. In our last article, we began our study of the old and new man by proving that the notion the new man is the Holy Spirit contradicts the Scriptures and Reformed confessions. This proof is significant because this notion is used to defend a novel—and equally false— doctrine about the unconditional covenant, namely, that in the covenant of grace the regenerated person does nothing—he does not believe in (or love) God; faith is wholly passive; faith is God’s act; God believes (and loves)...

professor of Practical Theology in the Protestant Reformed Theological Seminary and member of Hudsonville PRC Previous article in this series: October 2024, p 19. Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to...

professor of Practical Theology in the Protestant Reformed Theological Seminary and member of First PRC in Grand Rapids, Michigan ”Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him…”—Colossians 2:8-10a   The text is a warning to all God’s people. Yet, at the beginning of another academic year of the PRC Seminary it is a warning especially to the seminary students preparing for ministry. In the text,...

The annual convocation exercise for the Protestant Reformed Theological Seminary was held at Byron Center PRC on Wednesday evening, September 4. Attendance was outstanding, especially since early September and the beginning of a new school year is a busy time of year for everyone, and when our exercises began at 7:00 p.m., it was still 79o F on a picture- perfect, late-summer evening! Historically, convocation is not very well attended. Going back forty years to 1984, we find Prof. Homer Hoeksema commenting on convocation in the Standard Bearer, “I only wish sometimes that more of our people could and would...