A mark of a healthy church is when members care well for one another in the love of Christ. In such a church the members build genuine, God-honoring relationships to provoke one another unto love and good works (Heb. 10:24) and to comfort one another by the comfort wherewith they have been comforted of God (2 Cor. 1:4). They do this because they love God and love the other members of the church. They want to use their experiences of God’s grace in their lives to encourage and help others in their suffering and sin struggles. If you are a...
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Without the grace of God, the fallen human race develops technology in the service of sin and not for the glory of God. The ungodly use new technology to commit the same sins their ancestors did but in new and alluring ways, and we are tempted to do so too. The world makes sin to abound more and more through new inventions and fills up the cup of iniquity ever more quickly (Gen. 4:16ff.; 6:5; Matt. 24:12). The rise of the world-changing technology of artificial intelligence is no different. The CEO of OpenAI recently announced the release of a new...
pastor of Unity PRC in Byron Center, Michigan Where do you go when your marriage is in crisis? How about when you have a difficult child to parent? Where will you find help in extreme suffering after a death, or in dealing with abuse and its affects? What if you are struggling with porn, habitual drunkenness, or drug use? Our covenant God has given us the gift of community so that in our suffering and sin struggles we find help in the church first and primarily. Our covenant God who dwells with us has designed the church to live in...
pastor of the Wingham PRC in Wingham, Ontario, Canada We pastors must speak “the things which become sound doctrine” to men and women of all ages in the church (Tit. 2:1-10). The things that become sound doctrine are the Christian virtues which ought to bloom in the hearts and lives of us who know the doctrine that Jesus Christ “gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (v. 14). The sound doctrine of “the grace of God that bringeth salvation” teaches us that we...
pastor of the Wingham PRC in Wingham, Ontario, Canada “In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin: but he that refraineth his lips is wise” (Prov. 10:19). I would like to “minister to the saints” in this article by calling your attention to this proverb that shows us the wisdom of God for our lives when it comes to our use of words. When we pour out a multitude of words without restraining ourselves, there is no lack of sin in what we say or write. I believe we all need to hear this. We seem to live in...
Rev. Daniel Holstege, pastor of the Wingham PRC in Wingham, Ontario, Canada The following is a piece I wrote for evangelism here in Wingham, Ontario. Prior to writing it, the substance of it was a sermon that I preached on Prayer Day. I asked my elders to suggest sermons that would work well as tracts we could give to most anyone. After I preached that sermon, one of them thought this might be a good one to use. So I revised the wording, formatted it into a trifold leaflet, made some copies, and placed a label with our church name...
Rev. Daniel Holstege, pastor of the Wingham PRC in Wingham, Ontario, Canada In our life under the sun, there is “a time to every purpose…a time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance…a time to get, and a time to lose…” and God “hath made everything beautiful in his time…” (Eccl. 3:1-7). It is a time to weep when you hear that your beloved brother…your dear son…your cherished husband…your loving father…your faithful friend…has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer…when you see his strength disappear after only a few...
Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes. Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant…. Song of Solomon 1:15, 16 Do you hear the warm and tender affection of Christ for His beloved wife? He does not look with longing eyes or speak with intimate affection like that to anyone else, for He has vowed to be a faithful Husband to this one woman forever. O what high esteem Christ has for His beloved! What gentleness toward His precious bride! Though she is sinful and unworthy of Him, He sees her clothed in...
I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning…. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I John 2:13 A Christian novelist whose books I enjoy reading once in a while made the striking comment that a child is born into this world with a hole in his chest in the shape of a father. That hole needs to be filled, but only a father can fill it. In other words, a child has a profound need for a loving relationship with a father. If that need is not...
Previous article in this series: October 1, 2022, p. 19. In our last article we saw that the church must have a culture of compassionate care. Saints minister to fellow saints in the service of Christ. Thus we want the church to be a place where we faithfully and lovingly care for the needs of one another. If we will understand rightly the spiritual relationships we are to have in the church, we must begin with God. This is true because our understanding of reality must always begin with God. This is what John Calvin wrote long ago, “It is...
