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Transcript of speech delivered at the graduation of Richard Smit and Cheah Fook Meng, on June 17, 1996. It is in the context of Christ-centered preaching that we must understand the discussion over redemptive-historical preaching vs. exemplaristic preaching. In an important writing on this subject (The History of Redemption in the Preaching of the Gospel, by B. Holwerda) the author states that really the origin of redemptive-historical preaching is to be found in “an ongoing discussion and debate which stirred the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands during the 1930s.” It is the author’s contention that during this crucial period of...

*This article is the conclusion of a public lecture by Herman Hoeksema on Christian education. For the first part of this lecture, confer SB, September 1, 1996, p. 463. The Way in which that Child must Learn to Go The education must train the child in the way in which he should go. That clause has been variously interpreted. The original reads literally: “according to the demand of his way.” Because of this literal reading of the original, there are those who say that the meaning is that you must train the child according to his age and character, according...

Rev. Davis is pastor of the Grand Valley Orthodox Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Saved to Worship Christians are saved from their sins to become worshipers of God. The Father seeks true worshipers (John 4:23). His seeking is saving. He seeks sinners to save them that they might become true worshipers of God Most High, and the Father finds the fulfillment of His seeking lost sinners to make them worshipers in the Son of man’s coming to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10). Christian worship is an issue of salvation in Jesus Christ. God’s...

Prof. Dykstra is professor of Church History and New Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. This is the first part of the text of the address given at the seminary graduation of Nathan Brummel on June 15, 1998. This graduation speech addresses the particular calling of a minister in the Protestant Reformed Churches. It has application to ministers for obvious reasons. It also has value for elders who must see to it that ministers are faithful in their life and work. Every believer also can profit from a discussion of how the covenant affects one’s life and work, not only...

The Rev. E.C. Case is a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). He is pastor of two PCA congregations in Mississippi. Memories of twenty years ago were evoked for many as approximately 150 people, most of them members of the Presbyterian Church in America, assembled at the Ebenezer Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, NC on March 23, for what was billed as “Concerned Presbyterian Day.” Dr. Morton H. Smith, Dean of the Faculty at the Greenville (SC) Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and former Stated Clerk of the PCA General Assembly, made direct reference to this twenty-year connection...

[Editor’s Note: Mr. & Mrs. Dewey Engelsma, of Hope P.R.C., Walker, Michigan, were present at the institution of the second congregation of the Evangelical Reformed Church in Singapore, a very important event in the history of the young E.R.C. and in the lives of the saints there. This report, in the form of a letter, is from the Engelsmas. HCH] Dear Friends of the Protestant Reformed Churches: On the 6th of September a very important event took place on the island of Singapore. The second congregation of our sister church was instituted, choosing the name of Covenant Evangelical Reformed Church....

Herman C. Hanko is professor of Church History and New Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. The Synod of 1986 decided to send a delegation to Singapore, at the invitation of the Evangelical Reformed Church, with a three-fold mandate: 1) to participate in the ordination of brother Jaikishin Mahtani’s ordination; 2) to lecture at a Reformation Day Rally which the ERCS was planning for the last week in October; 3) and to discuss with the Session of the ERCS and their Contact Committee various matters of mutual interest to their church and ours. In September the Contact Committee decided to...

(Transcript of an address delivered at the annual meeting of the R.F.P.A., Sept. 22, 1983)

Arie den Hartog is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Randolph, Wisconsin. I am writing this article at my desk in the study of our Randolph Church. We are thankful to the Lord that He has given us a place in one of our churches after our return home from Singapore. Our life as a family has started a whole new chapter. It would be hard to put into words what a great difference there is between life in Singapore and life here in the U.S.A. After laboring in Singapore and the Evangelical Reformed Church there for almost seven...

Rev. Stewart is a missionary in the Protestant Reformed Churches, currently working in Northern Ireland. We have seen that Patrick was clearly not the happy-go-lucky guy of popular perception. Nor did he evangelize Ireland in the service of the Roman Church and bring it under the sway of the Roman pontiff as, for example, Boniface did for Germany three centuries later. Nor was he an abolitionist. Thomas Cahill writes, “The greatness of Patrick is beyond dispute: the first human being in the history of the world to speak out unequivocally against slavery.”1 But Patrick’s Letter to Coroticus and his men...