All Articles For In His Fear

The Wrong Way. As these words are written, the short but pleasant summer season has again come to an end, and schooldays are with us once again. Throughout the country the schools have opened their doors to receive the nation’s children. Our own covenant children, too, have returned to their respective institutions of learning, and on the whole they seem quite happy about it all. We parents are likewise happy. The summer months may be ever so pleasant from many points of view, there is nothing like the satisfaction one gets when home and church and school all come down...

The Christian School. There are some things which a Christian parent should simply find it impossible to do. Sending his children to the public school is one of them. The public school is the school of the world. It is established, supported and controlled by the world. In all its instruction and discipline and life it bears the stamp of the world. There the fear of the Lord has no place and the only wisdom men know is that of the fallen and blind sinner. There stones are offered for bread and serpents for fish. There our covenant Jehovah is...

(From the speech delivered by the Rev. Herman Veldman at the recent conference of our Protestant Reformed ministers). It’s Necessity Our own Christian school is necessary, first of all, in the light of the history of our Protestant Reformed Churches. We must remember that the origin of the latter is inseparably connected with the theory of Common Grace. Common Grace is that theory which would teach us that concord, agreement between the church and the world is possible in all things earthly andcivil. It is the bridge which spans the gulf which otherwise exists between the Church and the world....

The rubric “Education” covers a vast territory. It deals with the entire bringing up of the child from the moment, practically, that it is born until it reaches the age of maturity and is prepared to take, its own individual, responsible place in life. True, even then man continues to be educated, to receive instruction. Speaking generally education does not cease until the end of life itself. All a man does, all he ever sees and hears, all his reading and recreation, all the contacts he makes in the world educate him in one way or another, to the good...

What the all-important concept “The fear of the Lord” implies has become clear. Resting on that most basic of all truths that God is GOD, “fear” is all that acknowledges Him as such. It is loving reverence, holy dread, all that and much more. It is all that the creature experiences when he is deeply and properly conscious of the presence of his God. The fear of the Lord implies that we know our God as He is and reveals Himself in all the works of His hands as well as His written Word. It means that we never weary...

Training the child “In His Fear” implies three things: that the fear of the Lord is the purpose, object of all the instruction of our covenant seed; furthermore, that this fear of the Lord is the actual content of all their education, directly or indirectly; finally, that the fear of the Lord is the sphere, the atmosphere wherein our covenant offspring are reared. In this final article before my successor takes over I should like to discuss with you the verb or verbs presupposed by the heading that appears above this rubric. “In His fear” is only an isolated phrase...

This particular rubric under the general heading: “In His Fear,” deals primarily with the education and training of the seed of the covenant. In Reformed circles, we often emphasize that the training of the covenant seed is the primary task of the Christian Home, the Christian School, and the Christian Church. However, there is also a personal and mutual training by the covenant seed themselves, especially as our children grow older. They are not merely trained by others, they also train and must train themselves. In as far as they are trained by others they must willingly cooperate, favorably respond...

In a previous article we brought out that the elect, the Christian, the believer is ‘the man of God’. And on the basis of Scripture God is our God and the God of our seed, hence, the church must proceed from the fact that in the covenant child she is dealing with ‘the man of God’. And this ‘man of God’ must be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. This is according to Scripture, and specifically so stated in II Timothy 3:17.

In, our last article under the general heading “IN HIS FEAR” we emphasized that the man of God must be thoroughly furnished unto all good works. We also brought out that in this furnishing unto all good works the Church Institute has to perform a very vital task. And we promised to say something more in our next article about the question as to how the Church must quit herself of that task. We live in an age wherein the Church by various means tries to hold on to her youthful members and keep them in her bosom. This effort in...

The Church must indoctrinate her covenant seed, ‘the man of God’. And to indoctrinate her means ‘to instruct in doctrine’. The Standard Dictionary gives the following description or definition of the word ‘doctrine’. “Doctrine, that which is taught or set forth for acceptance or belief; that which is held to be true by any person, sect, or school, especially in religion.” From the foregoing it is plain that a doctrine may be false or true, sound or unsound. Naturally, when we say that it is the task of the Church to indoctrinate the man of God, we mean that the...