“This is how the birth of Jesus came about. His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. . . . Because Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public […]
Confusion About Leadership The most recent Christian Reformed study committee to deal with the troublesome questions about women’s eligibility to serve in church offices had to study the Bible’s teaching about the “headship” to which God had called men. Although the questions about this matter had arisen in connection with church offices, the committee also […]
Recently I heard a minister who favored the ordination of women to ecclesiastical office make an impassioned plea that we keep an “open mind” in this matter “so that the Spirit might move.” It was a phrase that reflected an extraordinary lack of theological acumen. It implies that the canon is not closed , that […]
Introduction Throughout Christian history some outside of the main stream of Christian orthodoxy have opposed all forms of war and violence. They are called “pacifists” or “people of peace.” Often they appeal to texts in the Sermon on the Mount in which the Lord spoke of the blessed peacemakers and to His command to “turn […]
The island of Malta has one chief official and I am he. Generally, I do not receive visitors in the middle of the winter, not because I am inhospitable, but because the winter storms interfere with travel. Yet, in the middle of the stormy season, 276 crew members and passengers of an Alexandrian ship survived […]
On the 4th of October* a historic meeting took place in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Four groups came together to discuss the state of the Christian Reformed Church. This was a coalition for reformation in the CRC. It included members of the Abraham Kuyper Christian Citizen Foundation from Canada, members of the Reformed Fellowship, members of […]
Johann Sebastian Bach was 38 years old when he accepted his appointment as cantor of the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. In May 1723, the Bach family moved into the apartment in a wing of the St. Thomas School. The composer’s study was separated by a thin partition from the dormatory of the second year’s […]
Seven hundred years before the Christ was born Micah planted a clue deep in the Word: “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, . . . out of thee shall he come . . . whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” What other life in human history preceded birth into the infinite past; what […]
Lesson 7 UNIQUE ANSWERS TO PRAYER Psalm 3, Acts 12:5 & 12, II Cor. 12:8–10 Although we are assured of the fact that our prayers will be answered by the God to Whom we pray, the answers He gives are not always those we expect. While the answers are at times exactly what we had […]
“. . . As the days wherein the Jews rested from their enemies, and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning into a good day: that they should make them days of feasting and joy, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor” (Esther 9:22.) […]