Can you feel the anticipation and excitement? Look around and see thousands upon thousands of jubilant citizens hail the newly elected president lining Pennsylvania Avenue as the motorcade goes by. Watch and listen to the inauguration of a new President of the United States. What a memorable event in the life of our nation! What […]
As we approach that time of year when the church in particular remembers the death and resurrection of our Savior, it is appropriate to consider this often perplexing question. Christians, faithful to a Reformed understanding of Scripture, have always held that “it was God’s will that Christ through the blood of the cross (by which […]
Five “faithful sayings” are scattered throughout the pastoral epistles of the New Testament (1 Tim. 1:15; 3:1; 4:8–9; 2 Tim. 11–13; Tit. 3:4–7). The reliable and trustworthy statement given in Paul’s letter to Titus is particularly significant, for it may be regarded as a condensed summation of Pauline theology on the doctrine of salvation. In […]
Some time has passed since we last read about Samson. Last we heard about him, he had killed thirty Philistines to fulfill a bet. He had walked out on his wife because he had lost a riddle game, and returned home to his mother and father. Now we find him in 15:1 deciding to go […]
Judges 15 ended by telling us that Samson “judged Israel in the days of the Philistines for twenty years.” This is the typical ending formula for the accounts of the judges. This is the logical ending of the sad story of Samson. There should not be another chapter after this one. But there is. After […]
He died as he had lived, trusting the promises of the Lord! Three weeks before his last day he wrote these words to his old comrade-in-arms, Farel: “It is with difficulty that I draw my breath, and I expect that every moment will be my last. It is enough that I live and die for […]
With a Rod of Iron In the year 1973, Rousas John Rushdoony wrote a book entitled The Institutes of Biblical Law. This book was intended as an introduction to the Christian Reconstruction Movement. Gary North, a disciple of Rushdoony, and author of the book Backward Christian Soldiers? defines Christian Reconstruction as follows: It is “A […]
One of the oddest aspects of contemporary American Protestantism is the lukewarm attachment if not indifference by evangelicals to the doctrine of justification. If any particular doctrine was responsible for the rupture of Christendom, it was the understanding of salvation that resulted from Reformers’ teaching on justification by faith alone. Of course, the formal principle […]
From House to House: Articles and Helps for Beginning Elders By W. Huizinga Armadale, WA 6992, Australia: The Reformed Guardian, 2004 73 pp. soft cover Available at Bethel Book, 274 McNaughton Ave. East, Chatham, ON N7L 2G8, Canada Phone: 519-351-4290 Reviewed by Rev. Jerome Julien. Every year elders are faced with the […]
Jessie had already celebrated her ninetieth birthday when I first met her. She had raised a large family and now had many grandchildren as well as a growing number of great-grandchildren. She prayed for each one by name daily. Jessie was a resident of a retirement home. Her small room was modestly furnished. She did […]