HOME VISITING: A SOURCE OF BLESSING

“House-visitation,” or family visiting, is rightly held in high honor among us. Our Church Order stipulates that the elders shall “visit the families” to comfort, instruct, and exhort them (Article 23). Art. 55 says that ministers and elders shall at “family visiting” teach, refute, admonish, and warn regarding false doctrines and errors. The church visitors are to ask whether the consistory visits the families and whether the pastor takes part in this.

To be sure, home visiting may, and often does, become formal, superficial, and strained: the asking of “expected” questions and the giving of shallow, uncandid answers; with both visitors and family glad when “it’s done again.”

What’s the best way out then? Decry home visiting as unprofitable and outmoded? By no means! Let us the better bear in mind what it’s for and try the harder to make it effective.

Some have tried a new approach: take a choice and prepared Bible passage, discuss it from home to home, making the visit largely a devotional period together.

But the real purpose must be kept well in mind, namely, to find out the particular spiritual needs of the home being visited and to apply there the specific help needed; some what as the doctor first ascertains the particular need of his patient and then offers medication.

It seems plain that the pastor should take as large a part in this as he can. It gives him fine insights, appreciations, and approaches regarding the deep needs of his members.

Loyal, effective home visiting is a rich source of blessing.

C.H.

“WE WANT A YOUNG PEOPLE’S MAN!”

This is an oft-expressed desire of members of a congregation in the process of “selecting” a new pastor. Usually it means that they want a young pastor. “Young people’s man” and young man mean the same to them. Repeatedly the writer of this article has heard members of “vacant” churches remark that their congregations needed a young people’s man who would “mix” with their youth and wi n their confidence. It meant that they wanted a young pastor. The unfortunate implication was that an older minister does not or cannot mix with youth and is incapable of gaining their confidence. One would like to say to such church members,

“Very well, go ahead and secure the services of a young pastor who still can handle a catcher’s milt in a lively ball game and who is the ‘life of the party’ when young people come together for an informal social event. But remember this, that when you find yourselves with a serious counseling problem on your hands, involving some of those very young people who ‘need a young people’s man; don’t expect a neighboring veteran to take over for you, Be consistent and put that problem in the hands of your young pastor who mixes so well, has the confidence of your boys and girls, and understands them presumably better than an older minister might.”

No, this isn’t “sour grapes”! Nor is it in any sense a criticism of or lack of appreciation for our promising young ministers for whom we thank God, To each his own! Rather, this is an appropriate retort to a growing number of people in our congregations who are largely responsible for the senseless idea that it takes a young man to under· stand young people, but who are so quick to refer a youth problem to an older minister with the plea, “Our pastor, you know, is young and inexperienced, so we should like so much to have your counseling services.”

The writer is acquainted with several gray-haired veteran clergymen who repeatedly are by·passed by consistories engaged in making a trio or a duo. Some of those elders, who certainly ought to know better, join in the refrain, “We want a young people’s man.” Let us be done with such expressions. A generation ago they seldom were heard. What every “vacant” church needs is a Minister of the Word who is also a Shepherd of the Sheep. Faithfulness and integrity in both responsibilities qualify a man for favorable consideration. No one denies that in certain situations a young man may be preferable to an older one, But let the basis for the preference be something other than the false notion that an older man cannot competently serve the good interests of youth.

L.G.

OF COURSE, WE SHOULD LOVE OURSELVES

A European theologian whose name we have mentioned in a former article wrote a book 011 the Greek words in the New Testament for “love” and drew the conclusion that love in the highest sense of the word excludes all love for self.

It seems to us that this conflicts with Jesus’ summary of the second table of the law: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” The implication of these words is that it is proper to love ourselves and to make that the standard of our love for the neighbor. Even if the words “as thyself” were merely a statement of the fact that men, say what we will, are bound to love themselves, the fact that Jesus offers no direct or implicit criticism of such self-love justifies the conclusion that such love is justifiable—more than that, obligatory.

The only reason we are in danger of misinterpreting these words is that we have a low or incorrect estimate of true love. Self-love is essentially different from selfishness. Love is more than an emotion. Yes, it is also an emotion but the kind that springs from a genuine, God-willed interest in our own welfare, temporal and eternal, and that of our neighbor.

We should not separate love for self and the neighbor from our love for God. We should love God and therefore all his creatures, especially man made in his own image. As creatures and as image-bearers of God we should seek to glorify God by seeking to promote our true well-being. This motive of self-love should prompt the sinner to flee from the wrath to come and obtain the blessings of eternal life. And since he should love the neighbor as himself, he should feel impelled to save others lost in sin.

We read a scholarly article in the Dutch periodical Bezinning by Dr. J. Venema who discusses this matter of self-love from a psychological as well as theological point of view. He states the views of Hartman, Hegel, Scheler, and Dinswanger, disagreeing with their positions, and then takes up the view of St. Augustine on the Christian love of self. Later he quotes St. Augustine as saying: “He who loves God loves also himself, even as conversely the love of the neighbor includes the love of God as substantial love. With the same love therefore we love God and the neighbor. But we love God for his own sake, the neighbor for God’s sake. True love for self exists for God’s sake. He who truly loves himself loves God. He who does not love God would seem to hate rather than to love himself.”

In his concluding paragraph Venema writes: “Against this background the love of self is a Christian mandate and an obligation which one owes himself, The demand to deny ourselves is not in conflict with this; the fulfillment of this command can be the outflow of the love which one cherishes toward himself as God’s creature. This does not mean a restriction of man’s existence; in this one finds the realization of the possibilities which are given. For the denial of self and the bearing of one’s cross receive their perspective only if there is a direct connection with the following of Christ. Engaging only in self-criticism, putting our own shortcomings in the foreground, the desire to efface oneself make one unfit for loving God and the neighbor. One is so obsessed with one’s own defects that no room is: left for others. With Christian self-love, however, one can let himself go and at the same time accept oneself because one sees himself as a link in God’s plan…”

H.J.K.

THE “MET” WILL HAVE A SEASON

Although many of our readers arc probably not opera enthusiasts, they should be much interested in some of the recent activities at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.

According to the usual news report the “Met” was threatened with a season without performances this coming winter. A labor dispute between the musicians who play for the opera performances and the management had come to a stalemate. The musicians had asked for a sizable increase in pay. and the management said the opera company could not meet these demands. The result was a declaration by the management that there would be no opera season at the Met this year.

This announcement filled many people with consternation. Followers of opera throughout the nation and the world couldn’t imagine such a development. To have silence at this celebrated cultural center for a whole season was an unbearable thought. Even President Kennedy was appealed to by disturbed patrons of opera. Then things began to happen. The result is that there will be a season at the Met. Under pressure both the union and management agreed to salary terms that still have to be determined by Secretary of Labor Goldberg.

There is something disturbing in this story. The news reports tell us that this unusual type of settlement is not meant to set a precedent. It is called “unique.” We realize that at times government has to bring pressure to bear on stubborn representatives of management or labor to force them to come to terms in the public interest. But here, in a matter having to do not so much with the nation’s economy as with its free cultural life, a settlement is reached by exacting from both parties a promise to accept terms that are not yet known.

It seems to the writer that this is a hazardous sort of procedure. What kind of pressure was brought to bear on the parties concerned that they as responsible agents should accept terms before they are known? This is surely a most extraordinary way to do business. And there are unavoidable threats to free collective bargaining in such a situation. What an invitation exists here to politically minded bureaucrats to dictate terms that arc politically expedient. Furthermore, in this case such offensive political dictation comes too close to what must remain the free cultural life of the nation.

It seems to the undersigned that this event helps to highlight a problem that deserves careful study by the Christian in the United States of America. How docs the Christian correlate the biblical emphasis upon respect for governmental authority with the basic distrust of governmental power that is inherent in the constitution of the United States of America?

E.H.

WAS JESUS REFORMED? (FAITH VERSUS WORKS: A FALSE ANTITHESIS)

Yes, I agree, The above statement sounds almost blasphemous! But the question was propounded by a minister of the Gospel. And that in a public place!

A negative answer was given to that question. Jesus was not Reformed! This was deduced from Christ’s pronouncement of woe upon those who had not visited the sick, or fed the hungry, clothed the naked or given water to the thirsty in his name (Matt. 25:34–46).

Whereas we, Reformed, put all the emphasis on justification by faith apart from the works of the law unto salvation, Christ tells us that one is saved by works and not by his profession of faith. Hence, Christ was not Reformed! But this was merely a radical, dramatic way of telling the audience that we Christian Reformed people are on the wrong road. Let’s have done with such a theology, was the conclusion left in the mind of the audience.

There, my friends, you have another example of one of the false antitheses which are being foisted upon the people of God by would-be leaders. By a false antithesis I mean simply that two truths equally taught in Scripture are placed in opposition to one another, and then one is summarily rejected in favor of the other. Thus, instead of the whole counsel of God being preached, an Arminian or liberal heresy is smuggled in with pious palaver.

But it simply is not true historically, nor at the present time, that the Reformed Churches have preached only salvation by faith apart from the works of the law (this is most clearly the teaching of Paul in both Romans and Galatians); they have also stressed that faith without works is dead, that those who have been saved by faith must now oHer their bodies a living sacrifice unto God, “which is our reasonable service” (Romans 12:1–3).

When one ignores the doctrine of salvation by faith alone unto justification and puts in its place the doctrine of salvation by doing the law, he has perverted the Gospel of Jesus Christ in truly modernistic fashion and has returned unto the yoke of bondage from which Paul says we have been redeemed (Gal. 5:1).

Would to God that persons who cannot reconcile Paul’s emphasis on faith and James’ words on works would catch up on their home-work in Reformed theology before going astray and trying to teach others. Paul already for~· warned Timothy that “the time is coming when they will not tolerate wholesome instruction; instead, they will, to satisfy their own desires, gather up teachers that will tickle their ears” (11 Timothy 4:3 –Berkeley translation).

How one can appreciate that cry of the Old Testament prophet: “Would that all God’s people were prophets!” Would that all followed the apostolic injunction to try the spirits to see whether they be of God! This is a divine injunction and not the invention of men.

H.R.V.T.