I am writing this article on what is for our family a very significant day of transition. Some months ago, after I had accepted a call to become the minister of the Seventh Reformed Church, my wife and I carne to Grand Rapids to begin a new phase in our We together. Our first several […]
It used to be said that Christians were “too heavenly minded to be any earthly good.” That critique no longer holds; in fact, it has been reversed. Far from being “too heavenly minded to be any earthly good,” Christians today, it seems, are “too earthly minded to be any heavenly good.” Though the Scriptures exhort […]
Prior to the Protestant Reformation, monasteries covered the landscape of Europe. Christians were convinced that monastic seclusion was among the highest forms of holiness. Self-deprivation and ascetic rigor were treated as virtual means of grace. The apostles did not establish monasteries. Far from promoting self-deprivation as a way to holiness, the Apostle Paul, in 1 […]
The word “church” is derived from the Greek word “kyriakee” signifying that it is of the Lord. We know that everything that exists belongs to the Lord, but the church is the Lord’s in a very special sense. It is His personal possession, purchased by His blood. It has been referred to as His bride […]
And Jesus led his disciples out as far as Bethany and said to them: “Go ye into all the world, teaching all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things what so ever I have commanded you, and, lo, I am […]
After a long and hazardous journey in crossing the Atlantic Ocean, our forefathers landed on these American shores. They came with the history of the Reformation and the experience of persecution as their background. They came with but one purpose in mind, to be able to serve God in accordance with the teachings of Scripture, […]
The movement of the Nadere Reformatie had certain principles in mind when they sought to bring about changes within the church. These principles included the exclusive headship of Jesus Christ over His church; independence of magisterial authority; the supreme and ultimate authority of God’s Word in the church; and the subjection of all nations to […]
The war of independence was still going on in the Lowlands. It would last from 1568–1648. During that time the Reformed faith had taken root in the Lowlands and became the dominant religion. It was during that time, on March 3, 1589, that a baby boy was born in the family of a Dutch Reformed […]
In his monumental book, Netherlanders in America, Henry S. Lucas states that almost every Netherlander who came to America during the 1840s and 1850s carried with him some work by one of the following “old writers:” Smytegelt, Brakel, Hellenbroek, or Comrie. During a recent trip to the Netherlands, I noticed that there is still considerable […]
The doctrine of the covenant of works has come under fire once more in Dutch Reformed churches. Some Dutch Reformed Christians have called the covenant of works an unscriptural theory that must be rejected outright. The covenant of works, they say, has traces of Arminianism or Roman Catholicism in it. Of course, the battle rages […]