All Articles For Go Ye Into All the World

Previous article in this series: March 15, 2015, p. 280. It was in the year 1928 that the Protestant Reformed Churches began to advance toward establishing a “Classical Mission Committee” in order to do the work of missions in this small denomination. In the three previous years, organization of churches was not regulated by the classis (combined consistories), but was left, for the most part, in the capable hands of Rev. H. Hoeksema. By the instigation of Fuller Ave. (First PRC of Grand Rapids), a motion was approved by classis to “work toward performing home mission work,” and to “appoint...

In the course of the past years, I have occasionally had the opportunity to speak to some of our Protestant Reformed high school classes (usually via Skype, and usually in the wee morning hours here) concerning our Philippines mission field. This has always been enjoyable and an encouragement. I appreciate the fact that our teachers keep their students mindful of our denomination’s mission work. But I am also grateful for the interest the students themselves show in the work and in the saints here. That interest is clearly evident from the questions they ask. This was again the case with...

Three faithful ministers of the gospel banded together, forsaken and alone. We can only imagine what the Reverends Herman Hoeksema, Henry Danhof, and George Ophoff felt when the decisions made by Classis Grand Rapids East of the Christian Reformed Church (December 12, 1924) and Classis Grand Rapids West CRC ( January 22, 1925) stripped them of office in the Christian Reformed Church. Out of 247 ministers in the Christian Reformed denomination,1 only these three men with the majority of their elders and congregations had boldly maintained the truth of sovereign, particular grace over against the error of common grace. One...

Annual synodical reports from our foreign missionaries are published in the PRC Acts of Synod. Slotted in the supplements along with the Foreign Mission Committee’s (FMC) annual reports rest the yearly snapshots from the eyes of our foreign missionaries about their labors on our foreign mission fields. Members of our denomination can read those reports and familiarize themselves with the history and the current status of our foreign mission work in the Philippines. However, one aspect of the reporting that our foreign missionaries do may not be so well known. That is our monthly reports. These are submitted at the...

It is often said that mission work involves making many sacrifices. From time to time we have received well-meaning comments along those lines as part of expressions of thanks for doing the work of foreign missions. And it could easily be argued that this is true. Missionaries (perhaps especially foreign ones) could no doubt produce a list of things they have had to “give up,” so to speak. But to dwell on these things would not be spiritually healthy, nor helpful. Many years ago a fellow saint who was involved in foreign labors made some observations that struck my wife...

At first glance, one might think from the title that this article will fail to promote a healthy interest in missions. Who would be interested in biblical and Reformed missions if he is told that it is a humanly impossible work from many perspectives? Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to remember that the work of faithful missions, including its important result of positive fruit, is truly a wonder of grace alone. Faithful missions is the wonder-work of the sovereign Lord of the harvest, in which the faithful missionary is only a servant and a tool in His hand. Due regard to...

The sovereignty of God is fun­damental to Reformed theol­ogy. Throughout the history of the church there has been a con­stant struggle to maintain this truth as the cornerstone of missions. Some have so emphasized missions to be the work of the church and missionaries that they have weakened and minimized God’s control over missions. Others have so em­phasized God’s sovereignty as to deny the church any obligation to do missions. A biblical conception of God’s sovereignty in missions gives be­lievers a sense of the urgency and necessity of evangelism. On the one hand, those who fail to understand God’s sover­eignty...

Rev. Smit is a missionary of the Protestant Reformed Churches in America, stationed in Manila, the Philippines. I recently read a book written by Prof. David Engelsma and published by the RFPA in 2013 about the history of the origin, the writing, the adoption, and the rocky reception in the PRCA of The Declaration of Principles of the Protestant Reformed Churches during the early 1950s. While reading the book, I wondered whether in our mission work with those brought out of superstition and idolatry, cults, false churches, or churches far down the road of apostasy, the Declaration has any value today...

On Wednesday, April 9, 2014 a new denomination of Reformed churches was formed and established, namely “The Protestant Reformed Churches in the Philippines.” On that momentous and memorable occasion, one of our missionaries in the Philippines, Rev. D. Kleyn, spoke to the two churches involved (the Berean Protestant Reformed Church and the First Reformed Church of Bulacan) and to all who attended concerning the significance of the event and of the work the Lord has given the newly formed denomination. What follows is the content of his speech, which was based on I Corinthians 15:58—“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye...

Previous article in this series: March 15, 2014, p. 278. The Form for the Ordination of Missionaries in the Protestant Reformed Churches is employed to ordain missionaries to be sent either to the heathen or to the dispersed. A mission work directed “to the heathen” has become synonymous with foreign mission work. A missionary sent “to the dispersed” labors in our own country or other Christianized lands. From the Form it is clear what is meant by those who are dispersed. They are the scattered (dispersed) sheep of Christ’s pasture. These sheep had ancestors that were faithful members of the...