“…for this brother of yours was dead, and is alive again.” (Luke 15:32b) The First Death and the Son’s Wealth My New Testament professor at seminary taught us to look for surprises in the parables. I see two of them when the son comes with his request to his father. The first surprise? His demand […]
January 1966 “Christ is not preached aright unless His shed blood is emphasized as the only way guilty human beings can find peace with the righteous God. We can never advance beyond the cross; we can never outgrow it and go on to other things.” The Offense of the Cross Johannes G. Vos “The question […]
At a seminar for pastors one of the speakers, a psychologist, noted that the Reformation movement sparked by Martin Luther assumed that people had a sense of guilt and a deep desire for atonement. He argued that today this is clearly not the case. As he put it, “In our modern culture most individuals are […]
Archaeologist William Dever from the University of Arizona teaches many, many American college students. In his estimation, 90% of his students are ignorant of the Bible and its contents. What is worse, they are not only uninterested in the Bible, he cannot even arouse interest in them with regard to the Bible. Ignorance of the […]
On October 19, 2002, Rev. Edward J. Knott, who until recently served as the president of the board of Reformed Fellowship, will observe the 55th anniversary of his ordination as a Minister of the Word and Sacraments. Rev. Knott is a graduate of Calvin College and of the […]
Readers of The Outlook may be familiar with Henry Coray’s, Against the World: The Odyssey of Athanasius (1992). This is a brief (yet commendable), popular, fictionalized biography of the champion of Nicene orthodoxy. Inveterate defender of the creed of Nicaea (325 A.D.), Athanasius has been revered by the church catholic for his unswerving insistence on […]
RYS Convention draws more than 500 attendees by Ed DeGraaf, Director of Reformed Youth Services From July 15-19, Reformed Youth Services held its 2002 youth convention in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was the first time RYS-member churches had traveled out west for their annual national conference. More than 500 young people and sponsors from 36 […]
There was a time when the average man in the pew hardly knew the meaning of the word “liturgy.” At least not much attention was given to it. Worship services in the Christian Reformed Church were relatively simple and uniform. All that has changed over the last few decades. “Liturgy” is now the in thing. […]
In order to find our way through the thicket of literature on the new perspective on Paul, we must give special attention to the figure of E. P. Sanders. Even though Sanders was not the first to question the older, more traditional understanding of the teaching of the apostle Paul, his writings have become a […]