“Let no one say when he is being tempted, I am being tempted by God; for God cannot be tempted by evil and He Himself does not tempt anyone.” (James 1:13) The Epistle of James is an intensely practical guide in matters of Christian living. The author’s wisdom cuts through all the religious sham and […]

Writing the book, Dutch Chicago: A History of Hollanders in the Windy City (2002) gave me a new appreciation of our rich heritage. I was particularly intrigued, when tracing the history of the churches over the past 150 years, to find that some thrived and some died. Why the different outcomes, I wondered. The contrast […]

In our last two articles we have looked at what our Confession of Faith says about the Holy Trinity. Now in articles 10-11 we pause and study the divinity of both the Son and Holy Spirit.               The Deity of the Son Eternally Begotten The Biblical language of God […]

In our last article, we learned that Revelation 1:20 is the lens through which we must read the seven letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2–3. We learned furthermore, that “the seven stars” which are “the angels of the seven churches” are indicative of the office of the ministry of the Word. Now we […]

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” [Hebrews 11:1] I would imagine that Noah’s neighbors knew a lot about the ark. They saw him build it from scratch. They heard Noah preach about the coming judgment for one hundred twenty years. But even with all those neighbors […]

Romans 3:21–26 A second passage in Romans that uses the expression, “the righteousness of God,” is Romans 3:21–26. Like Romans 1:17, this passage plays a pivotal role in outlining the major theme of the epistle, and summarizes the argument of the apostle up to this point. In this passage, Paul returns to the theme of […]

I flipped through the channels and settled on a late night talk show. The host was interviewing a famous actress who was talking about her view of life after death. It amazed me that a show known to be mostly “fluff” would take on such a serious subject. What amazed me more were the views […]

January 1982 “Elders must never be afraid to do what is right, certainly you need to be responsive to the needs of the congregation – no doubt about it. But remember that ultimately you as elders are responsible to God and to Him alone. When you do His will you need not be afraid to […]