The task or the organized church is to teach and preach the Word of God. Whatever else it may properly do is subordinate and subsidiary to that task. This is the one great task of the organized church. In the great commission Christ charged the apostles and the church of succeeding ages: “Make disciples of all nations…teaching […]

It is difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of an organization without officers. The church as an organization also has its officers. Unfortunately there are in Christendom many misconceptions of the church’s offices. And with these misconceptions are bound up erroneous views concerning the importance of the organized church. Therefore a study of these offices […]

That every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is in duty bound to belong to the organized church is ‘beyond dispute. However, the visible church is divided into a great many parts known as denominations, and some parts are so independent of all others as to call themselves undenominational. Thus the question arises in which one […]

With a week-long jubilee we celebrated some sixteen months ago the seventy-five year existence of our beloved Calvin Seminary and College. Highlight of that Jubilee was a Pageant, which pictured in a series of scenes the growth of these two institutions. The Pageant was an artistic triumph for everyone who had anything to do with it, […]

Almost all churches are intent on numerical growth. Most ministers in particular are eager to see the membership of their churches increase by leaps and bounds. That attitude is not necessarily wrong. Provided those who are added to the church are saved, additions most certainly are cause for warm gratitude. But not infrequently the desire for numerical […]

EVERY believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is a member of His mystical body. That is the unmistakable teaching of Holy Scripture. His very faith constitutes the believer a member of Christ’s body. And since that body is identical with what theologians call the invisible church, it may be put down as an indisputable fact that every true […]

Almost all churches are intent on numerical growth. Most ministers in particular are eager to see the membership of their churches increase by leaps and bounds. That attitude is not necessarily wrong. Provided those who are added to the church are saved, additions most certainly are cause for warm gratitude. But not infrequently the desire […]

Scripture speaks of several antitheses; for example, that of Christ and Antichrist, that of the good angels and the fallen angels, that of believers and “principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12), that of the church and the world, that of believers and unbelievers, that […]

IN DEALING WITH such a subject as “Calvin’s Conception of the Church” one may well be on his guard against diverse temptations. He who would be known as a Calvinist is in peril of unduly exalting the person of John Calvin and of ascribing to his teaching a quality approaching infallibility. Perhaps that danger is […]