“Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Do not come near it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way before.” (Joshua 3:4 NKJV) As we begin a new year, we always do two things. We […]
Euthanasia Euthanasia, including assisted suicide, is another example of misdirected pity in our present culture. It is being tolerated and accepted by people in our society out of pity for someone experiencing suffering. The Bible teaches us to have compassion for and give help to those suffering. Certainly every legitimate medical means should be used […]
“Comfort, O comfort My people, says your God.” Isaiah 40:1 This year The Outlook is beginning a study of what many people consider to be an outdated document. Some ministers have said it takes us away from the Bible. Still others, even within reformed circles, refuse to preach on it. With this issue we begin […]
Last month I wrote that once the Christian Reformed Church awoke from its ethnic slumber and became less introverted, evangelism became its number one concern of the denomination. Everything within the church had to be geared toward church growth. From an admitted parochial imbalance in its early years, the scale tipped to the other extreme: […]
Soon it will be seven years since the first steps were taken to organize a federation of churches now known as the United Reformed Churches in North America. It seems appropriate, then, for us as members to reflect on the way by which Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of the church has led these […]
Some years ago one of our churches had a text printed behind the pulpit. It was a verse from the Bible that was plainly visible to all who came to worship. It read as follows: I JEHOVAH CHANGE NOT This quote from Malachi 3:6 served as a precious truth and a comforting reminder that if […]
February 1969 “No preacher is furnished to preach simply by possessing a gift to analyze a text and by the ability to lay it out in verbal form! If the word he would preach to others has not first of all been the instrument of his own personal indoctrination and instruction unto sanctification, he is […]
Of all the authors who are to some extent identified with the “new perspective on Paul,” perhaps none is as prolific or popularly known as Nicholas Thomas (“Tom”) Wright. Though Wright prefers not to be identified with some monochrome development known as “the new perspective,” he clearly writes as one convinced that a return to […]
The clock in the belfry of the small church across the pond sounded loud and clear. It had just struck the midnight hour. The midnight concert was in full swing. Katydids in the trees were serenading the insects below, the violin section of crickets sounding off on the high notes. The cymbals of cow bells […]
Happy New Year! Great words—another year past and another day closer to the Day when the Lord will descend with glory. Yet events of the day do not always make us feel so happy. Muslim legalism and the terrorist threat on the one side, post-modernistic relativism and the slavery of ignorance on the other, along […]