A blessed Easter to you! But let’s be clear about one thing. That wish can come true only on this condition: that by faith we think the right thoughts. Fragrant Bowers, a new outfit, and delicious food can serve a good purpose only if they are outward symbols of believing thoughts in our minds and […]
A discerning minister colleague tells me that I must get rid of the idea that the Christian Reformed Church will ever return to what it was once upon a time. To indulge in such wishful thinking, he insists, is futile and fails to recognize the lesson of church history that should be as clear to […]
Especially one word in the above title is important. So, please nota bene, or mark well that the title does not say, “How to Build a Church”; but rather, “How to Build His Church.” This makes all the difference in the world. And all the difference for eternity also! Christ’s church vs. Satan‘s – Satan is […]
Oh no! You and I even worse than Ebenezer Scrooge? That detestable old skinflint, a curmudgeon if ever there was one, all but demonic in being a stingy, miserable old miser—even worse than him? That just can’t be! Our secular Christmas observance with all its happiness, hubbub, anti hilarity is once again rising to its […]
Do you want to be a great preacher? You can be, on one condition. It’s all very simple, You have to take dynamite with you into the pulpit when you are about to preach. Not literally, of course. One hears strange things these days about all the trinkets, the gadgets, and the whatnots that clutter […]
October is a good time to say this. Why? Because this is the month to celebrate the glorious Protestant Reformation. At least this is what we should be doing as those who still call ourselves Reformed—even Christian Reformed. Or has the glory of that illustrious sixteenth century in church history now grown dim and dull […]
“The church,” Calvin says in his Institutes, “is called ‘catholic’, or ‘universal’, because there could not be two or three churches unless Christ be torn asunder—which cannot happen!” But where is the visible manifestation of this? The lack of this is a cause for deep sorrow. And to be comfortably unconcerned is sin. Of course, this […]
Seek First the Kingdom Does the fact that misgivings have been voiced in THE OUTLOOK about what some have been saying or writing about the Kingdom mean that there is no interest on our part in positively seeking the Kingdom first? Don‘t you believe it! Please be sure, we are eager to be second to […]
My purpose in writing these lines is, primarily, to call attention to a nomination for a teaching position at Calvin Seminary and one reason why I am convinced that it should be open to very serious question, and secondarily, in so doing. also to give somewhat of a review of a book that the nominee in […]
In 1951, as a visitor at Concordia Theological Seminary (Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod) in St. Louis, I had the opportunity to chat with a member of the faculty there, and I have not yet forgotten what he told me. At the time, our own Calvin Seminary was in the throes of what appeared to be irreconcilable […]