Calvinism And 1959

Prof. K. Runia. Trowel & Sword, April 1959

Preamble: It seems somewhat ironic that while we worship an unchanging and unchangeable God, Christians, including Reformed Christians, are constantly trying to change the church and themselves on the pretext of “keeping up with the times”. Last week our post looked at whether we should be calling ourselves “Calvinists” or “Christians”. This week’s article by Prof. Klaas Runia, written 16 years earlier, takes for granted that we are Calvinists and urges 1959 be a year of commemoration of John Calvin’s birthday (450 years) and 400 years since the publishing of his “Institutes”. Today Calvin and Calvinism hardly rates a mention; and these days, when (or if) we still celebrate Reformation day, it is more likely to be a celebration of Martin Luther than John Calvin.

Calvinism and 1959

Perhaps some of our readers ask themselves the question: why this combination of Calvinism and the year 1959 in the heading of this article?

The answer is very simple. 1959 is a year of commemoration for the Calvinists all over the world. And that in two regards. First it will be 450 years ago that the great Reformer John Calvin was born in Noyon, France.

Secondly it will be 400 years ago that the final edition of his masterpiece, the Institutes of the Christian Religion, was published by Calvin himself.

Are these two facts not worth to be commemorated by the Calvinists of today? The answer can only be: Yes, of course. And therefore in many countries preparations are made to celebrate these facts by special conferences, lectures, publications, etc.

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At the same time, however, these same two facts call us to reflection upon the situation of present-day Calvinism. Is Calvinism of our day still the Calvinism of John Calvin? Or, to put it in a more personal way: Are we, who call ourselves Calvinists, indeed Calvinists? Or is it only a name?

In the Banner of January 2, 1959, the Editor, the Rev. John Vander Ploeg, tells a story about the inaugural address given by a Dr. John Newton Thomas, when he was installed in the chair of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary.

“In the opening paragraphs the speaker introduced an imaginary Martian visitor who asks: What is the cardinal principle of your theology in the Reformed Churches? When he is told it is the sovereignty of God, he sets out to visit a representative group of Southern Presbyterian Churches to hear their ministers preach.

“Later he returns, and reports that he does not understand, seeing he has been visiting Southern Presbyterian Churches for six months or more and has yet to hear the first sermon on the sovereignty of God. He doubts whether it is true that this is the cardinal doctrine, the distinctive principle of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.

The person addressed then settles the argument by drawing & small, dust covered black book from his shelf containing the Confession of Faith (the Westminster Confession), which he hand’s to the imaginary visitor from Mars.

‘After studying it for a moment, the telling, not to say the crushing reply is made ‘Yes, here it is. But in my judgement, sir, if I may be permitted to say so, the convictions which are vital, the doctrines which are real, are the truths your prophets herald from the pulpit, the counsels your pastors whisper at the bedside of the sick and dying. I care nothing for a doctrine which reposes cadaverously in your Confession, however beautifully embalmed or perfect its state of preservation. I am interested, not in the dead, but in the living!”

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I am interested, not in the dead, but in the living!

Rev. Vander Ploeg applies this to his readers from the Christian Reformed Church. But have not we to do the same here in Australia?

O no, it will not be as bad as it is pictured by Dr. Thomas, when he speaks of his church. When I glance through the sermons of our ministers which are published in the “Word of Salvation” I find sound Reformed preaching.

But what about us personally? Are we real Calvinists? Do we personally live out of the basic principle of Calvin’s teaching: the sovereignty of God, revealed in Jesus Christ?

To quote Rev. Vander Ploeg again (with some slight variations): “Are we really believing it? God is sovereign means that He is supreme in power and authority. His sovereignty is gracious, just, and also absolute. Of Him and through Him and unto Him are all things. Everything revolves about Him even as all the planets in our solar system revolve about the sun. Either God is sovereign or else He is not”.

Would a visitor from Mars be able to detect this if he visited the Reformed Churches of Australia and New Zealand? Would Paul, Augustine and Calvin recognise us as their spiritual sons in this, if they could return to Earth, and be with us for the next six months?

Are we true Calvinists?

I think we had better alter the question. For Calvinism wants only to be the expression of the Biblical revelation, the revelation in Christ.

Are we true Christians?

Paul and Augustine and Calvin will not come to visit us this year. But One will be present, in our congregations, in our families, in our personal life. Always and everywhere. Jesus Christ, the Lord of Calvin will be there. He is our Lord too,

The best commemoration of John Calvin will be a life of total obedience and trust in Jesus Christ. Then we are true spiritual sons and daughters of John Calvin.

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It is, however, also fitting to give special attention to the life and work of Calvin in this year’s issues of our magazine. We will not do that to glorify Calvin. He himself did not like that at all. In one of his letters he once wrote that he did not want his followers to be called Calvinists. Not the servant is important, but the Master. Soli Deo gloria”.

But is it not the honour of God, if we give proof to appreciate his gifts to his Church? John Calvin was such a gift: One of the greatest gifts. And in commemorating John Calvin we want to thank the Lord for his goodness towards his Church.

Here then follow a few of our plans for this year.

In the May issue we will give some information about commemorations in various parts of the world. This survey will certainly help us to see again that Calvinism is a true world-movement.

In June we plan to publish a joint article of the Rev. R. Swanton ( Presb.), Dr. Leon Morris (Anglo) and myself on the Status and Prospect of Calvinism in Australia”.

For July Prof. Barkley will write an article on the Life of Calvin, followed in August by an article from the pen of Prof. Schep on Calvin as the author of Commentaries.

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Finally I would give an advice in the form of a request.

I would advise all our sessions to set aside one special Sunday to observe the two facts that mark this year as a year of commemoration for all Calvinists. Probably the best date would be the Sunday preceding 10 July, the birthday of Calvin. That would mean Sunday, the 5th of July. I would like all the sessions to ask their minister to have a special sermon of commemoration.

And may I request the editors of the “Word of Salvation” to ask one of the ministers to provide for this occasion a special sermon, that will be published before July 5, so that these facts can be commemorated also in the reading services?

We, who received such a rich inheritance, owe much gratitude to God, who blessed us so abundantly in giving us this inheritance!

K. Runia

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“Calvinist” or “Christian”

Rev. Ray O. Zorn. Trowel & Sword, March 1975

Preamble: What’s in a name? This could well be considered a subtitle to this week’s post. In the early days of the Reformed Church, its leaders went to great lengths to proclaim to its members and indeed to the world that here was a church which unashamedly followed the teachings of John Calvin. This was reflected in the naming of many of its groups, particularly its youth groups. For example, we had Calvinettes, the Calvinist Cadet Corp and also the Federation of Calvinist Youthclubs of Australia. Some twenty-five years later the mood started to change. Some wanted to become more closely associated with Christians of other denominations, hence the push to drop the “label” Calvinist and replace it with “Christian”, while others argued for the distinction to be retained. The following article by Rev. Zorn was part of that debate.

“Calvinist” or “Christian”

The Editorial Secretary has asked me to respond to certain questions which have arisen in connection with the change of the name of the Calvinist Cadet Corps to the Christian Cadet Corps. Mrs. J.F. Schouten in the August issue of Trowel and Sword wrote a letter expressing her “dissatisfaction and unhappiness with the change as it waters down the principles for which we stand”. (p.25).

Mr. J.W. Bonker in the October issue wrote a letter in defence of the name change, “for we are followers or disciples of Christ (as e.g. Luther and Calvin were) and therefore we and our associations are called after Christ and not after certain men”. (p.25).

Mr. W. de Vries then wrote in the December issue that he thought it would be better to keep the old name, since “The Reformed Church stands for the teachings of John Calvin and so does the Cadet movement. It is not Lutheran or Baptist. Let it then be so and do not change the name because you are confusing others and maybe yourself too.” (p.26).

In the meantime another letter was received by the Editorial Secretary which raised the question whether the majority of Reformed Church members are indeed Calvinistic or merely Christian? For, the letter-writer alleges, aren’t the ordinary members simply bound to the Twelve Articles of our catholic and undoubted Christian faith? However, he admits that the office bearers must subscribe to the Three Forms of Unity (e.g. the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort) before taking office. The letter-writer concludes by saying, “I confess that Calvinists are also Christians and that all Christians are not Calvinists, but to say that the Reformed Church – as a whole! – stands for the teachings of Calvin … that is not true!”

Without going into the issue of whether the Cadet Corps was right in changing its name from Calvinist to Christian, it seems to me that the above correspondence deals with two basic questions which need clarification.

The first is, what does the word Calvinist express? The answer to this is really quite simple. For the word stands for a movement of reform in the Christian Church of which John Calvin was a leading exponent, as over against another movement of reform of which Martin Luther was the initiator and leading exponent. Calvin’s movement followed Luther’s and was more thoroughly biblical as can be seen, for example, by the principle he advocated in the worship of God; namely, what is not commanded by God is forbidden (reflected also in the answer to Question 96 in the Heidelberg Catechism). Luther’s more mediating principle was, what is not forbidden by God is allowed.

Just as Luther’s movement of reform came to be known as Lutheran, Calvin’s came to be known by the terms Reformed, or Calvinistic. Therefore, though none of the creedal standards of the Reformed Churches of Australia were written by Calvin, they are nevertheless a part of the Reformed, or Calvinistic, movement. So also are the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, even though they were written some 100 years after Calvin’s time.

A Calvinist is therefore a Christian in the Reformed tradition. Hence, it would at any rate seem that the Cadet Corps by changing its name now wishes to identify itself more broadly with the mainstream of Christianity rather than with the narrower Reformed movement that gave it its birth. Whether this is an improvement or not we leave to the judgement of others.

The second question arising out of the above correspondence is, how Reformed (or Calvinistic) are the Reformed Churches and their members?

It is not hard to establish the fact that the official position of the Reformed Churches is a wholehearted commitment to the Reformed (or Calvinistic) faith. For the office bearers at their ordination are required to give their assent to the question, “Do you believe the Old and the New Testament to be the only Word of God and the doctrinal standards of this church to be in harmony therewith?” (Psalter Hymnal, p.106): which in the provisionally adopted new Liturgical Forms booklet is, if anything, put even more strongly, “Do you believe that the Old and New Testaments are the only Word of God and that in them the way of salvation is taught completely, also accepting the Confessional Standards of this Church as being in harmony with Scripture, and do you refute all doctrines conflicting with them?” (p.41).

Moreover, in the Form of Subscription which all office bearers are required to sign before commencing their official duties, they pledge that they “heartily believe and are persuaded that all the articles and points of doctrine contained in the Confession and Catechism of the Reformed Churches, together with the Canons of Dort do fully agree with the Word of God.” They “promise diligently to teach and faithfully to defend the aforesaid doctrine….” They moreover declare that they “not only reject all errors that militate against this doctrine… but that they are disposed to refute and contradict these and to exert themselves in keeping the Church free from such errors” (cf. p.71 of the Psalter Hymnal for the full text from which the above quotations in part are taken.)

It is therefore not easy to see how one of the letter-writers quoted above can, while admitting that the office bearers must subscribe to the confessional standards of the Reformed faith, nevertheless declare that “to say that the Reformed Church as a whole! stands for the teachings of Calvin … that is not true!”

In all fairness to him we should recognise that he bases this claim upon the fact that “ordinary members, when they confess their faith, are bound to the Twelve Articles of our catholic and undoubted Christian faith.” This reference to the Apostles’ Creed, however, which he makes is based upon a quotation found in the form for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper (Psalter Hymnal, p.95) and refers to the liturgical use members of the Reformed Churches make of the Apostles’ Creed when, as they confess their faith in its terms, they make clear the fact that they are a part of the body of Christ as a whole.

However, when they make public confession of their faith at the time they become confessing members in full standing in the Reformed Churches, they are required to give assent to several questions, the first of which is, “Do you heartily believe the doctrine contained in the Old and the New Testament, and in the articles of the Christian faith, and taught in this Christian church, to be the true and complete doctrine of salvation, and do you promise by the grace of God steadfastly to continue in this profession?” (Psalter Hymnal, p.88). In the new Liturgical Forms booklet the question equivalent to this one is even more pointed in its reference to the Reformed faith, for it asks, “Do you believe the Bible to be the Word of God, and the doctrinal standards of this church to be in harmony with that Word?” (p.36).

It should therefore by clear that the members of the Reformed Churches, no less than their office bearers, are required to give their assent to the Reformed faith as being that which they believe “to be the true and complete doctrine of salvation” since it is “in harmony with the Word of God.”

However, we are prepared to admit that there are possible (indeed probable) differences between the official position of the Reformed Churches and their actual practice, at least in some specific instances. For Christians (even Reformed ones!) are in this life in a stage of spiritual development. Therefore their grasp of truth, while it may be correct insofar as they possess it, is yet incomplete. With others it may even be somewhat deficient, due to the remaining effects of sin or to intellectual limitations. A session must therefore decide on each particular case as it examines the applicant for church membership. And because such evaluation, being subject to human frailty, is faulty at times, there will be some who are unreformed and some even who are hypocrites who go undetected by sessions and become members in the Reformed Churches.

Moreover, the writer knows of at least one case where session was faced with the problem of what to do with an application for membership by a family who was Reformed in every respect except in the matter of infant baptism which they rejected. Finally the session, not willing to make membership in the Reformed Churches more difficult than getting into heaven (as was being alleged against it), accepted the family as members, with the stipulation that they not openly oppose the Reformed teaching on infant baptism nor seek to impose their less scriptural views upon other members of the flock.

No doubt many would hail such a resolution of a difficult problem as a wise course of action. And sessions generally may be tempted to follow such a procedure with similar cases which they encounter. Consequently, cases like this may indeed exist in the Reformed Churches. None of these instances, however, is proof of the claim that the Reformed Churches stand for less than the teaching of the Reformed faith. On the contrary, if and when sessions are induced to take such a course of action for these admittedly difficult cases, it is not because the Reformed Churches are thereby less than Reformed; but rather because it is hoped that such people thus admitted to membership and subjected to the teaching and preaching of the Reformed Churches’ ministry will ultimately see the light and wholeheartedly embrace Reformed truth as the truth fully taught by God’s Word.

Sometimes, however, such members ultimately wind up in the unhappy position of being discipline cases for one reason or another. Perhaps it is because they refuse to have their children baptised, or seek to propagate their unreformed views, or lose interest in supporting the church, etc. It may therefore be questioned whether sessions are acting in wisdom when they lower the Reformed bar of admission to church membership in any way for the sake of expediency. For oftentimes they are merely postponing the day of ultimate reckoning with such cases to a later and perhaps more difficult time.

At any rate we may conclude by saying that the Reformed Churches are doctrinally committed to the Reformed position and practically maintain it, howbeit in an imperfect manner at times.

Ray O. Zorn

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Children’s Ministry

Helen Vanderbom. Trowel & Sword, February 2003

Preamble: The growth of Christian Schools in the last fifty years or sons an indication that Christians take the raising of their children in a Godly environment very seriously. But is it the case that an unintended consequence may be that parents today may not be as diligent in teaching their children in the home as their parents and grandparents were when they were growing up? Helen was well know for being passionate about children’s ministries and for bringing up children in the Lord. In this article Helen writes about some of the issues in raising up godly children in a Christian environment in the home.

Children’s Ministry

The new year with its challenges has now come upon us in earnest. Children and Youth ministries leaders are finalising the year’s aims, programs and activities. Many plan to come to the “Strength for the Journey” conferences run in almost every state, and to other local training opportunities. Parents are sacrificing again to send children to Christian schools.

Once again we must ask, what do we want for our children? What do we want for our churches and families?

Our affluent Australian lifestyle encourages us to provide videos, video games and play stations, camps, birthday parties, trampolines, cubby houses, indoor and outdoor entertainment, takeaways and outings, music and sports lessons all for our children’s well rounded education and social development. Our children have tremendous opportunities to develop their gifts and interests.
Despite all these distractions, as Christians we still believe that the most important thing we want for our kids is that they hear and respond to God’s message and desire to serve Him with their lives.

And despite the great programs our churches may run, the home continues to play a central role in the faith development of our children, both positively and negatively.

One question I’d like to examine is the place of family devotions in the life of the Christian family. How important is it to have devotions and Bible reading as a meaningful part of the family’s regular routine? Many of us know of people who were put off the Christian faith because Dad or Mum made them sit very still after the evening meal to listen to a long Bible reading, followed by an obscure prayer. My own memories were similar except that the chapter read to us was from a children’s Bible and I loved it. The prayer was okay and we had opportunity to talk about things if we wished. 

Many ‘old generation’ parents wanted their family to hear God’s Word together and to be trained by it. Fathers as head of the household took on the priestly task of leading in worship and teaching, not with harshness but love and respect. Mothers also accepted this task and took it seriously. Such was obviously the ideal family situation. We know not all our parents were like this. When parents had Godly wisdom and loving discipline, the children were able to respond and experience the love of God and learn His ways.

What about our modern Christian families? Many of us have cast off these old ‘shackles’, and no longer believe in this Reformed tradition of evening meal Bible reading and prayer because it was so boring’ and ‘old world’. Or we do not see it as all that important. Or we would like to maintain the custom but do not have the time.

So how do we reach and teach our children effectively today?
For those of us whose children are able to go to Christian schools we expect to rely on them to do the hackwork of helping children gain an overall understanding of the Bible.
Cadets and Gems (Calvinettes) have Bible badges that also give knowledge of what the Bible is about.
VBS and Holiday Clubs generally by their nature of being short term, must concentrate on particular stories or themes of the Bible that teach about God’s love for them in Jesus.
Sunday school and after school clubs. These have a number of functions in relation to the Bible. To tell the Bible stories in a regular, refreshing and interesting way. To present the central message of the Bible, God’s ‘Big Story’ so that children can come to know, believe and have Life. To teach the Bible so children will learn how God wants them to live in response to Him. All the above programs include having loving Christian leaders who by their lives, words and actions challenge the children to respond to the Good News they hear and see.

Teaching the Bible at Home
Aren’t the above aims broadly similar to what we want for our children at home? Today’s families are very busy people. Fathers work long hours, often cannot get home till late, perhaps even after the children go to bed. Then Mum has the major part of being with the kids until the weekend. Or there is shift work, or both parents work either full or part time. There can be unemployment with a little more time but also with the issues of seeking work and struggling with feeling depressed. The financial burden of paying for today’s modern home as well as Christian school fees also adds to the mix. The complexities are immense. This is the reality for the family today.

Can families still afford to worry about daily family devotions? Can’t these church programs do the job so families can use their spare time to do fun stuff, relax, watch TV and get out a bit?

God makes the parents’ task very clear in passages like Deuteronomy 6:5-9, Deuteronomy 11, Proverbs 22:6 and Ephesians 6:4. In these Scripture passages teaching and training are emphasised. Teaching and training always involve regular effort and the setting of priorities. Although the task can be shared with the various other programs, the central task is still there for the parents.
So God’s Word seems to point us towards having regular family times where we can train and teach about God and His Word. Using our mealtimes is a good start although the Deut. 6 passage reminds us to use every family outing and opportunity. Mealtimes are generally regular, readily available opportunities to talk and share.

It may mean that one parent takes on the responsibility of leading the family devotions much of the time because of circumstances. It is much more likely that regular Bible reading happens when it is a daily habit. A daily routine does not take away its effectiveness if it is done thoughtfully and appropriately. Just as we need to feed our bodies and clean our teeth every day, we need to feed our souls and meet with God daily. Our children learn much about our relationship with the Lord by these everyday habits. In Psalm 119, verse 105 we read Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. Helping our children to see the immediate relevance of God’s Word to daily living, as well as having a wider overview of God’s Word will enable them to use God’s Word in decision making as they grow. It is important to choose a children’s Bible suitable for their age. Children need ‘milk’ rather than ‘solid meat’. Only slowly are children ready for an adult meal. There are also devotional books around to provide variety, but it’s important not to neglect reading God’s Big Story.
Asking questions and encouraging the children to ask questions ensures that they understand the story and issues involved.

I believe it is appropriate to leave out passages that deal with things that are beyond the kids’ understanding, and to make the teaching time interactive, relevant, lively and of appropriate length. Again the ‘milk passage’ is applicable.
If fathers are not often able to be around for this daily devotion time, it is important for them to be involved as often as possible. The kids need to see that it is Dad as well as Mum who loves interacting with God’s Word and believes God’s Word to be central to their lives.

We must not neglect prayer time as part of the daily family devotions, perhaps using a variety of approaches. Most of our children learn to pray spontaneously if we encourage and guide them. And we too may become more comfortable with prayer if we make the effort for the sake of our children. It is realistic to accept that we cannot fulfil this regime for half an hour every single day. However, God does want us to make family devotions, like our own private devotions, a priority, and put time and prayer into planning it. It takes effort to decide what is appropriate at each stage of our family’s life. And God can help us with that too. God will also help us review our priorities and activities from time to time so that we continue to be blessed by our family devotions.
May the Holy Spirit give us the desire to look at this aspect of our family life so that families and His church may be built up through Godly parents and children growing together in love and knowledge of Him.

H Vanderbom

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Reformed Church or Ref. Ghetto (2)

Rev. W. Vanderkolk. Trowel & Sword, Jan./Feb. 1965

Preamble: Following on from the previous article Rev. Vanderkolk presents us with some suggestions on how to avoid becoming a “Reformed Ghetto”. It is worth remembering that these articles were written sixty years ago so perhaps the suggestion of working among Dutch migrants may not be as relevant as it was back then. It may also be true that over the years many churches have had programs like those suggested here; but how long ago? If it was more than a generation ago perhaps it is time they were “Revisited”.

Reformed Church or Reformed Ghetto (2)

Our churches owe it to their very character to be aggressive, militant churches. This implies that we have to take Christ’s great commission ” Go ye therefore and teach all nations….” as seriously as the Early Church. It is our solemn duty to proclaim the good news inside the Church and outside the Church. The great problem is how to do it outside the Church. How are we to reach a largely pagan, post Christian nation?

There are leaders in the Church who believe in organised evangelism work exclusively. They seek the solution in the direction of impressive, well publicised, well organised rallies and crusades. There are also leaders in the Church, who denounce this method and who believe in unorganised evangelism exclusively. They reason that if every Christian makes it a point to speak a good word for the Lord in his own circle of friends, relatives, colleagues and neighbours a most effective work can be done. This indeed holds true. Generally speaking we can say that personal witnessing for the Lord among people we know intimately yields the best harvest. It is the Biblical method par excellence. However, in my humble opinion, this does not remove the need for organised evangelism work. Organised evangelism work may not be as effective as personal witnessing (but) it has its advantages also. To begin with it puts a great many people to work for the Church of Christ. In the second place organised evangelism work will make quite a few participants active witnesses for the Lord in their own environment. In other words it leads to personal witnessing. In the third place by means of organised evangelism work we contact people we would never meet with otherwise.

In this article we will discuss a number of possibilities which we have as Reformed Churches. Every congregation will have to work out its own programme. Circumstances differ from place to place. In the Sutherland congregation (a normal, average sized, suburban Reformed Church) we work as follows:

1. Work Among Dutch Migrants. This is a task not one of our Reformed Churches can permit itself to neglect. Do you know that many a migrant of Dutch extraction feels desperately lonely? Do you know that many of them long for a bit of help, encouragement, fellowship, and compassion? Admittedly, many of them live self-centred, materialistic lives and have no interest whatsoever in the gospel of our Lord. Yet the 130,000 migrants of Dutch extraction constitute a mission field we can ill afford to neglect. In Sutherland we are continually on the look out for Dutch families. Whenever we spot one we begin sending “Elisabeth Bodes” and pay a visit shortly afterwards. In this way we have led quite a few families to the Lord Jesus. We don’t say this to boast. Only to encourage others who do the same work. At times the work may seem fruitless, yet the Lord does provide us with openings.

This work is time consuming. If it is true, however, that one soul has greater value than all the treasures on earth, it is more than rewarding. On the whole Dutch people are quite happy to receive you. Once a promising contact is laid, it is a good thing if a very experienced member of the church or the minister does the follow-up work. Our follow-up work begins usually with a discussion of the first chapter of John.

2. Door-to-Door Work. About half a year ago we started this work, It began at an ordinary meeting of evangelism workers in our church. One worker was thoroughly dissatisfied with visiting Dutch people only. Why should he not visit the neighbours of the Dutchman also? The meeting felt the same way. It was decided to work in ever widening circles around the church. The World Home Bible League provided us with Bibles and New Testaments. We bought children’s bibles and bibles for young people.

We still happened to have thousands of Back to God Hour tracts. One Thursday night at 7.15 p.m. ten scared people met for a short prayer meeting. Immediately afterwards we went. We felt ill at ease when we knocked on the first door. However, things proved a long way easier than we thought. How are you to open a conversation after you have knocked on the door? The way which satisfies me most is to have a large New Testament in your right hand and to ask politely, “Did you ever see this Book before, madam?’ Usually the question is answered in the affirmative. It gives you a chance to raise the next question “Do you know what it is all about?” From that moment onwards the conversation can turn into every possible direction. You want to know whether this work is successful? Usually you have one or two good conversations per evening. Due to this work two Australian families receive Bible lessons. With quite a few we have established hope giving contacts. By now we have collected some forty addresses where we have to come back. We don’t know what the upshot of it all will be. It is our firm conviction, however, that door-to-door work is an excellent way to beat the ghetto character of our church. An added blessing of this work is that we shake up a great many church members of other denominations also. Of the original group no one has dropped out so far. On the contrary the team still grows.

3. Vacation Bible School. This year we organised our first V.B.S. By now we have a fair idea which mistakes to avoid. Our school was attended by between 60 – 80 pupils. The numbers varied a little from day to day. We met for ten mornings from 9 – 12. 50% of the children were unchurched, At least they did not come from Reformed homes. The great majority of the children thoroughly enjoyed themselves. So did the teachers. In many shops and petrol stations, and also in the Railway Station we had posters. Hundreds of handbills had been distributed. A vacation bible school is fairly expensive. Both the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the Christian Reformed Church have published beautiful material. The material of the C.R.C. is nicer than that of the O.P.C. Where the latter is considerably cheaper, we used that. Our school worked out at 10 shillings/pupil. The question could be asked: Was it worth the effort? We think it was. Next year D.V. we hope to have a better and bigger V.B.S.

4: Special Drives. The ecclesiastical calendar provides us with a few good opportunities to do some special work for the Lord. Round Christmas and Easter people seem inclined a little more to listen to the good news. Six weeks before Christmas we started our campaign. Free of charge a member of the church printed beautiful Christmas cards containing a greeting from our church and giving all the particulars about the church. Together with the booklets of the British and Foreign Bible Society we offered these cards to over six hundred families in the district. On the whole people were quite happy to accept them. During the final two or three days before Christmas about 1/3 of the congregation was participating one way or another. Again it could be asked: Was this a worthwhile venture? It was for those who participated. It was an excellent preparation for a proper celebration of Christmas. It was also a worthwhile affair for the few who were very keen to listen to what we had to say.

5. Vicariate of Evangelism. Only because of the presence of a vicar we could do so much work during the summer months. It would be a healthy development if the committees of evangelism in the average sized and larger congregations would make an effort to avail themselves of the services of our students. It is good for the students. A new dimension is added to their studies. They begin to understand what is involved in being an evangelist. In door-to-door work they meet with the indifference, scorn, and contempt which many an Australian has for the Christian faith. They begin to realise what it means to do a work in utter dependence upon the Lord. They can conduct a V.B.S., a beach mission, or some sort of a special drive. It is good for the churches also. Our churches can do with the zeal and vigour of young men who want to revolutionise the established order of our church life within the compass of three months. We need these men who are on fire for the Lord, It does a world of good in our churches to have men at work who can look at things from an entirely new and fresh standpoint. In years to come our churches can only benefit from the training it has given to its leaders in earlier years. Of course there is the ever present, financial hurdle, I don’t think it is so very hard to take. If it is a real burden on our souls that so many people live as if Christ is dead and not alive, we must be able to find ways and means to employ a student during the holidays.

In conclusion we can say that the forms of organised evangelism work as we suggested are fairly easy to realise. What is needed is a committee of evangelism which consists of hard working, dedicated men and women, who have the trust and support of the session. In our congregation we find that this extra work results in more effective, personal witnessing; in greater giving; and in a generally speaking better church life.

It is our prayer that as our churches are becoming better established they may become better tools in the hands of Christ to do His work. If we don’t want to fossilise, we will have to evangelise. 

W. VANDERKOLK

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Reformed Church or Reformed Ghetto?

W. Vanderkolk. Trowel and Sword, December 1964

Preamble: “Ghetto • a part of a city …… occupied by a minority group or groups. • an isolated or segregated group or area.” In this hard hitting article, written a mere 3 years before his tragic death while on a holiday with his family, Rev. William Vanderkolk wrote passionately about what he saw as a Reformed Church in danger of becoming inward looking and isolated from the world around it. It makes me wonder what he would think of the CRCA today. He closed his article with the following: “One can only wonder how much longer God will have patience with a pleasure seeking nation and a lazy church.”

Reformed Church or Reformed Ghetto

Our New Zealand churches have so their own problems to cope with. At one of their Synods a report was studied which dealt with the character of their church life. The problem was posed whether they had to go the Reformed way or the Presbyterian way as far as their form of church government was concerned.

About the character of our church life many an interesting article could be written. Suppose I would ask any outsider right now what he would consider our character to be, he most likely would answer: Dutch – irrespective of the fact whether we call a presbytery classis or a synod general assembly. Personally I think there is nothing wrong with this. I still must meet the first Presbyterian who feels ashamed about the typically Scottish character of his kirk, or an Anglican who excuses the typically English set-up of the Church of England. The Dutch character of a church, instituted by Dutch migrants is the most natural thing in the world and I can see no reason why we should make all these frantic efforts to get rid of it. A church without any flavour at all, seems to me a long way worse than a church with a Dutch flavour. As long as one thing is clearly understood. At all times we want to retain the character of a Reformation church, a church which traces back its pilgrim’s procession to the light which was kindled in the 16th century and which crashed in all its brightness upon the darkly glowering face of Europe. We want to retain the character of a church which is so overawed by God’s grace and love, that it has no other choice but simply follow its Lord.

It seems to me perfectly senseless to worry about the Dutch character of our churches. It seems to me an urgent matter to pay heed to the Reformation character of our churches. As Churches of the Reformation we have a stupendous task. It is our calling to proclaim in our land the principles of the Calvinist Reformation. This task asks for the zeal and vigour of the Early Church. It asks from our denomination the willingness to touch the nerve of Australian life and to seek continually ways and means to be related to our environment. If our churches are truly Christ’s, if our churches are living out of the Spirit which He has sent, they will naturally and necessarily enter into this mission relationship with our society. After all, the church was created a testimony to Jesus Christ. Whenever our churches and the world meet, there mission comes into being. In other words: mission is not first of all a programme which the church carries on. Dr. J.H. Nederhood says: “It is the inevitable event which occurs when the Church’s supernatural being contacts the world, when the life which has been bestowed upon the Church touches the death that sin brings”: (“The Church’s Mission to the Educated American, p• 19”). I think we do well to ponder upon these words. It is utter folly to our churches to become excited about foreign missions while remaining nonchalant about the relationship to our environment at home.

If we are unrelated to our environment we are no longer Reformed Churches but Reformed Ghettos. In a ghetto we can live very comfortably. We can build up a huge organisation with many committees, which produce many important reports. The outside world, however, will never read these reports and will leave us to ourselves. A ghetto does not influence its environment. This “ghetto” character we must avoid at all costs.

We must come to grips with the world in which we live. Of course this is easier said than done. Enormous problems confront us here. What are we to do to have churches with the missionary zeal we read about in the New Testament? More than one minister in our churches complains of the spiritual apathy he meets with time and again. Often it seems that our people cannot be stirred any more. They seem indifferent. Sufficiently orthodox and conservative to accept the Reformed position as the truly Biblical one, they nevertheless seem to sail in a heavy, spiritual fog. They seem so very tired of all the good things a minister or elder has to say.

What to do about such a situation? I don’t think there is a simple remedy. Let those of us, however, who can see which issues are at stake, fervently pray that the Spirit may be revived once more in the midst of the Church. Apart from praying, let us work also. Nothing is more liberating than work, especially when this work is a Christ given commission. The work I am referring to is not the work within the organisation. However valuable, it is no more than “ghetto” work. It is a good thing that in our churches there are always people willing to serve as members of the Board of Management, youth club committee, bible study group committee, ladies’ guild committee etc. The church could not function without them. But let us never see such a committee as an end in itself. All these committees must aid the church to do its real work: to be a testimony to Jesus Christ in a sinful world.

Many of our church problems would disappear, if we could stop being very busy with ourselves, and if we could start being compassionate with the perishing world around us. This is an urgent matter. Time is running out. Australia is a nation greatly blessed with material wealth. This wealth did not produce a people thankful to the Lord. On the contrary, God’s blessings helped Australia become a thoroughly godless and hedonistic nation. It is high time that our churches become out and out aggressive churches. One can only wonder how much longer God will have patience with a pleasure seeking nation and a lazy church.

In a following article we will give a few possibilities of organised evangelism work. 

W. Vanderkolk

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The Beauty Of God’s House – A Few Small Points

Trowel & Sword. A.I. De Graaf, October/November 1964

Preamble: In this article, published over two months, Rev. de Graaf sets out to clarify what may be regarded as two of the lesser, albeit solemn “traditions” of the worship service of the day. It may well be that some churches today no longer even follow these traditions but their importance back in 1964 were such that Arent felt compelled to write an explanation for their use. It begs the question: “Does every person attending a worship service in the CRCA in 2024 know and understand why we do what we do”? There was obviously some misunderstanding and/or confusion in 1964 and it would not at all surprise if there are Reformed church members, (including elders and even ministers), with misconceptions about certain aspects of the worship service today.

The Beauty Of God’s House

Can one make difference in liturgical matters between big and small points? Can one say that, “Word and Sacraments” being the focal objects of Reformed Worship, the rest is just unimportant? Or is it so that all we do in the solemn meeting of the congregation with her Lord, must be done decently and in order, and – for that reason must be understood by all people?

I think that we all can agree on the answer. And therefore I would like to mention a few small items which give me the idea that some do not quite understand what’s going on. Maybe I can be of some help here.

The two points, are:

1. The handshake of minister and elder before and after the service.

2. Eyes shut during salutation before and benediction after the service?

1. THE HANDSHAKE OF DELEGATION.

As a little boy, and right up to the time when I as a student dipped a little deeper into liturgics, I always thought that the handshake of elder and minister in the church had the following meaning: BEFORE: “Dominee, the Lord strengthen you”.  AFTER: “Well done!” I think I am not a wild guesser when assuming that 75% of our people, including the office bearers, think this is what it means.

This, however, calls for some problems, in case it were true. Not so much the handshake before the service (I actually know of elders who say “STERKTE!! (strength) when ‘administering’ it!). But surely the one after, in case the minister might have said objectionable things in the pulpit. What is the poor elder to do? He feels upset because he does NOT agree. Must he hastily set up a whispered conversation in Session, say, during the final hymn, whether he shall shake the hand of “approval”, or not? But what if Session does not sit together like often is the case? Must he refuse in his own responsibility? But what if he was mistaken, and after all only misunderstood a certain passage, or what if the rest of Session appears to uphold the minister’s words? A thorny problem!

And a problem which is needless, because THE HANDSHAKE DOES NOT AT ALL MEAN TO CONVEY AN ON-THE-SPOT APPROVAL MADE IMPROMPTU BY THE ELDER. It conveys, before and after the service, that SESSION which IN ITS ENTIRETY is responsible for the service, DELEGATES the minister to do his job” ON BEHALF OF SESSION. Afterward this is again expressed: “You stood there on our behalf, you and we are together”. This is the historical view. And in a country where MINISTERS have – like in the Presbyterian Church the right of the pulpit all alone, and where the local session has not that right to call him to task in that way, it is the more significant. Often people who commented upon this “foreign” custom offered thus a splendid opportunity to tell a bit about the corporate responsibility of Session for the ministry of the minister. So the handshake means: “Dominee, you are doing (or: have been doing) this holy work on our behalf: we are together in this…”

But then what in case of the minister who says things or does them, which the elder-of-duty cannot agree with? Even in that case it is clear: the handshake should be given. But this means then: “We, the Session, the WHOLE SESSION (not just the one elder who can be mistaken just like the one minister can) shall look into the matter: Your sermon is our sermon, too: we may not just for reasons of personal kindness leave this matter: You and I, we are appointed JOINTLY by God to feed this flock”, Then the very handshake implies that the minister may and must be called to task by his elders, and, in case he is proved to be unscriptural, the very handshake implies that Session must insist that he make amends from the Pulpit as soon as this can be done.

This, and no other, is the meaning of the handshake. It is good that everyone in our Churches realise this: It is the delegation, and not just the approval. Of course the elder himself, and the whole Session for that matter, can ALSO express prayers for strength before, and warm grateful appreciation afterwards, but these are ADDED notes, not the real intention.

2. EYES OPEN OR SHUT DURING SALUTATION BEFORE – AND BENEDICTION AFTER SERVICE 

I think again, that at least 75% would answer the question in the above title with “shut of course”. But then I submit they are mildly mistaken. When the service begins there is opportunity for silent prayer, when we together draw to the Lord and commit the service to Him, making special mention before the Throne of the minister who needs anointing from on high, something which he himself cannot always publicly do.

Then the words “Our help is in the name of the LORD…” are the sign to OPEN THE EYES. This is not a prayer. It is a proclamation. It is to relay again the promise of the Lord that where 2 or 3 are together in His Name, there He is in the midst of them with blessing, with fulfilment, with grace. After that the SALUTATION follows. This is not a benediction, with two uplifted hands, like will follow at the END of the service. It is a greeting for that is what “salutation” means. In the old christian church this was more evident as the minister said: “THE LORD BE WITH YOU”, to which the congregation REPLIED by “and with your spirit”, The type of greeting as it was done by Boaz meeting his servants on the field and like Jesus himself used when entering the meeting of His church after Easter: “Peace be unto you”.

The minister lifts ONE hand in the manual of greeting, and, if we think it is not dignified enough to greet back in the Name of the Lord or even lift a hand too, at least we could look one another in the eyes! It is a greeting, not a prayer! Fancy me coming into your lounge room saying ‘good morning” and you reacting by closing your eyes!

What then about the blessing at the end of the service? Is that a prayer? Is that a wish we lay before God’s throne? No, it is not, We have already prayed before for the LORD’s peace and light and grace upon us. But the benediction is more: it is a proclamation on behalf of Almighty God that His favour DOES rest upon His covenant people. The priest in the old Testament was to pronounce (!) that benediction after the offering was made which was a condition for God’s favour (and that offering means Christ as He is preached in the service) and after he had been at the golden altar of incense where the prayer was made on the strength of that offering (which means Christ). The benediction was not a mere repetition of that prayer. The Lord Jesus (Matt.6) warned against repetitions. After the prayer the priest was to go out and pronounce the benediction (think of the story of Zacharias, Luke 1).

During such a pronouncement of God’s favour in Jesus we must not look to the ground, nor shut our eyes (by the way did you notice how often the body then reacts to these shut eyes by yawning? I do have my eyes open and never do the people yawn as much as during the benediction. Maybe my colleagues will comfort me by saying that I had better be glad they don’t during the sermon!).  “But our eyes should be lifted up.

The minister is to lift his hands over the congregation, thus reminding them of the hands of Jesus lifted up as He went to heaven to pray for them (Luke 24) and surely the effectual prayer of This Righteous Man availeth much (James 5!). Let us look then, and rejoice! For God’s promises are pronounced and very sure. Blessed are we indeed, whenever we claim them in living faith!

A.I. DE GRAAF

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The Place of Preaching in the Church Part 4

Rev. Martin Geluk. Trowel and Sword, July 1995.

Preamble: In this, the final instalment of “The Place of Preaching in the Church”, Martin ties all four parts together with conclusions that should be compulsory reading for all RTC students, all ministers, all elders and every CRCA member sitting in the pews; and in truth, every Christian, regardless of church affiliation. To illustrate, the following is a sample of what he has to say: “So preaching is a serious business and listening to preaching is a serious business. We don’t come to church to hear a ‘nice sermon’. Nor do we come to hear a dynamic speaker gifted with marvellous oratory. And we don’t come to hear what the speaker might have to say on this or that subject. We come expecting to hear the word of Christ.” If any person has any doubts about why they attend church services this article, and this series of articles should dispel those doubts for all time. Read it! Share it! Take it to heart and let it be your guiding light all the days of your life.

The Place of Preaching in the Church (4)

So far we have considered three observations which we believe rest on Romans 10:14-15, and its context. First, that the aim of preaching is to have people call on the name of the Lord for salvation; secondly, that preaching is the church’s most important calling; and in our last article we dealt with a third observation: that the church should resist human substitutes for preaching. We now offer our last observation.

The Word is the means through which God speaks. It is a sad thing that so much confusion has been created in Christian circles about how God speaks to us. We hear well-meaning Christians say that God spoke to them personally and directly. Some claim that if God so wish­es He can still have His people prophesy today.

Some of these claims are not mere trivial issues. Those who believe that God still speaks outside and in addi­tion to His written Word are sincere and genuine Christians and it is their conviction that Scripture itself teaches that this is what we can expect God to do. But the confusion and the disagreements that face us because of this belief are also partly caused by careless use of certain words and this, of course, makes for unnecessary misunderstanding.

For example, a Christian reads a passage in the Bible and the Holy Spirit might make him see the truth of that passage for the first time. That believer may then say to someone else: ‘The Lord said to me the other day that …’, and goes on to say whatever it was. Now if the person hearing this believes that God still actually speaks today like He did many years ago to Abraham or Moses or the apostle Paul, or other New Testament prophets, then he will be most impressed and keen to hear what message the Lord gave to this Christian believer making the claim. However, if a Christian does not believe that God speaks like this anymore but now only through the word of Christ, which he considers to be the Scriptures, then such a Christian will not be excited by the claim and will merely conclude that the person claiming that God spoke to him is either repeat­ing something that God has already said in His written Word, or is imagining that God spoke to him directly.

If Christians repeat something that is already in the Bible, then it prevents confusion when they make that clear. If what they want to say is not straight from the Bible but something that logically follows from the Bible’s teaching, then they ought to humbly preface their remarks by something like: ‘I believe that Scripture is teaching us …’, and leave room for others to also examine the Scriptures, to see if that view is in keeping with biblical teaching.

Many in the historic Christian church have held that the only way God speaks, after the last NT apostle died, is through the written Word. They believe that the Reformation Confessions hold to this. They believe this is what Scripture itself teaches. God does not give direct, personal messages anymore, except those which are the word of Christ in the Word of God written. The Bible is sufficient and gives all we need to know in order to call upon the Lord for salvation. The Bible provides the Christian church with all she needs to know in order to preach the Word and let its light shine on all of life.

Now preaching the Word is, of course, not limited to the sermons you hear in church on Sundays. Preaching is proclaiming the Word of Christ and wherever that is done according to the truth of God’s Word there it is the Word of God. Preaching, therefore, can also take place in a radio or TV broadcast, by way of the printed page, and so on. But where possible Christians should come together for worship and there hear the Word of Christ.

But what we want to stress here is that preaching is the proclamation of God’s Word. It is to proclaim Christ, it is to minister His word to the listeners. The preacher must try his utmost to let the Word speak. It is the mighty and powerful Word of God that must be heard. Therefore, the preacher must make sure that he under­stands the passage, or the text, as God means it to be understood. He must harmonise the passage or text with the rest of God’s Word. He must explain the Word correctly, and the application he makes to today’s situation and to peoples’ lives must also be in keeping with the Bible’s overall teaching.

All this requires that the preacher understands some­thing of the original languages the Bible was written in. He must know of the situation when the Bible book was written and why and to whom. The preacher must have a good grasp of biblical doctrine because truth is not many things unrelated but truth is one thing. The preacher must also understand something of how people think and live in today’s world, so that the message he draws out of the Word is relevant, meaningful, and timely. Indeed, there are many things required of the preacher in order to have Christ speak through him. To regularly preach sermons that truly proclaim God’s Word takes hours and days of serious and prayerful preparation every week again.

So preaching is a serious business and listening to preaching is a serious business. We don’t come to church to hear a ‘nice sermon’. Nor do we come to hear a dynamic speaker gifted with marvellous oratory. And we don’t come to hear what the speaker might have to say on this or that subject. We come expecting to hear the word of Christ. Preaching is not lecturing, it is not entertainment, nor is it giving a devotion or a meditation. We do our devotions and meditations at home or at the Bible study. When the preacher is in the pulpit, then he is to preach. Preaching is a forthright proclamation of the Word of God.

We come to church to worship God and worship is our response to God speaking to us. It is to hear Christ. We come to listen to Him and to call on His name. If Christ does not speak, if He has not been heard, then it has not been preaching. The listeners must know for sure that it was Christ who said to them: ‘…come to me and I will give you rest, … repent and believe; … your sins are forgiven … go in peace.’

From this it follows that the preacher has really no message of his own. He is Christ’s ambassador. He is nothing more than the herald of Christ. An ambassador must deliver the message as given to him by the one who sent him. He is not there to give his personal opinion, his own view of things, or his own philosophy. He may do that at the Bible study, in a discussion meeting, or in his research, just like everyone else may do that.

But when he gets up to preach, then it must be the gospel of Christ. He dare not give stones for bread because God holds him accountable for the way he rep­resents Christ in his preaching. If he cannot say with his preaching: ‘Thus says the Lord.’ then he had better not get up to preach, for not being a true ambassador for Christ will get him into serious trouble with God.

How important for the church, therefore, to have the Word of God preached in its worship services. The task of the elders of the church is to watch over the preaching. They are responsible, with the preacher, that not the word of men but the Word of Christ is heard. The elders, therefore, must also know the Word. They must be diligent students of the Word. They must encourage the preacher or put restraints on him if he strays from the truth. An elder has a most responsible task. They are the watchmen on the walls of Zion. The church that gives up on its oversight of the preaching is a church that is no longer vigilant. And preaching that is no longer the Word of God is like salt that has lost its flavour and therefore worthless.

Finally, who is going to get up and preach? Can just any Christian do it? Was it Christ’s intention that every Christian be a preacher? Preaching is not the same as witnessing. All Christians are called to witness in word and deed at the right time and the right place, depending on what God has given the Christian to do and with what gifts. In our witness we may give our opinion, and reflect on our knowledge of Scripture, as we seek to be true to Christ’s gospel. But as we said a moment ago, preaching is much more than witnessing.

The command to preach the gospel was not given to every individual Christian but to the apostles and through them to the church they represented. God entrusted His Word of truth to His church. It is the church’s task to preserve, interpret, and preach the Word. The church fulfils this calling through the ministry of the Word. The church calls the preacher and sends him forth to preach. It gives him the authority to do so.

In the tradition of the Reformed Churches the hand­ shake the elder gives to the preacher at the opening of the worship service means: ‘As the God -ordained elders in this church we give you the authority to preach the Word of God.’ And the handshake at the conclusion of the service is to say: ‘On behalf of the elders of this church we have accepted the preaching as the Word of God.’

It stands to reason, therefore, that the church has to make sure that preachers have been adequately trained. The church has the authority to take away the right to preach when the life and doctrine of the preacher is an offence to the gospel of Christ.

People have gone preaching without being sent and have argued that where they were there was no church to send them, or the church was corrupt, or the church just failed in its task. All that may well be the case. But the fact remains that the church of Christ must reform itself and send preachers to preach, for Rom. I0:15a makes it clear that they cannot preach unless they are sent.

The place of preaching in the church, then, is most important and the church that neglects it does so at its own peril. But what a blessing when the church guards the gospel well, and what a blessing to the Lord’s people when they may receive regularly the much-needed spiritual food from Christ. We all know that one sermon may come across better than another and one preacher is better at preaching than another. And sometimes it is not the fault of the preacher but our listening was not as it should have been. But thanks be to God when the Word of Christ is preached and heard. His Word is a lamp to the believer’s feet and a light for his path. It’s the Christian’s spiritual food and the believer must return to it regularly and faithfully.

Martin.P.Geluk

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The Place of Preaching in the Church Part 3

Rev. Martin Geluk. Trowel and Sword, July 1995.

Preamble: Rev. Geluk continues speaking to us in his four part discourse on the place of preaching in the church. After summarising the purpose of the first two articles he now goes on to show why: “The church must resist human substitutes for God-ordained preaching,” and in clear concise terms explains exactly what he means by that.

The Place of Preaching in the Church (Part 3)

In two previous articles we made two observations. First, that the aim of preaching is to have people call on the name of the Lord for salvation. Second, that preaching is the church’s most important calling.

Before we proceed with the next observation we need to be reminded what worship is all about. When the church gathers to worship God then the NT shows that a number of things ought to take place. Broadly speaking there is to be a speaking of God to the worshippers and a response from the worshippers to God. And so in the worship services we read the Word of God and that Word is expounded in the preaching. Then in response to God’s speaking to the church, the church speaks to God through her prayer, songs, in her confession of faith, and has an offering for the work of the Lord. Around these two main aspects – the speaking of God and the response of the congregation, the church structures its worship services and gives it a certain order. We are familiar with all these things because we have them in the Sunday worship services. In these articles we are considering just one part of the worship service, the place of preaching in the church. And we are saying that preaching is the most important part.

Without the preaching of God’s Word the church would not know what to say to God, nor know how to serve Him. Indeed, how are we going to meaningfully give God our worship if God has not first spoken to us in His Word?

In our first article we wrote that preaching has to do with calling on the name of the Lord for salvation. Romans 10:14-15 makes it clear that in order to call on the Lord to be saved you need to believe. No one is going to come to God for salvation and no one will speak to Him in prayer if that person does not believe in God. But in order to believe one has to hear Christ first. Christ has to make Himself known. But Christ is in heaven and we are on earth and so God has ordained preaching. The Word of God is communicated to us through preaching. That’s how we hear Christ speak.

And so we came to say in our second article that preaching is the church’s most important calling. It is the Word of Christ to us.

We now proceed with another observation that rests on this passage from Romans 10. The church must resist human substitutes for God-ordained preaching.

There is no doubt that we live in times in which, generally speaking, the Christian church appears to have lost faith in its own preaching. God has commanded His church in the world to: ‘preach the Word, in season and out of season’, but the preaching in the church’s worship services frequently fails in what it is supposed to do – to open the Word of God and let Christ speak.

And so it happens that sometimes the speaker gives his own view on a certain subject, sometimes there is an interesting story to tell, perhaps about an experience from his own life, or from someone else’s life.

Sometimes there is a dramatization of a Bible story in a play, or a film, or in music, or some other form of expression. A worship service can take on a whole different character and you can’t quite tell if it was worship, or a concert, or entertainment. Of course, all of life is to be a form of worship of God. Yet, when the church calls its members together for the purpose of meeting with God then there ought to be a speaking of God in Christ which is what preaching is all about.

We must be careful not to give the impression that preaching is in decline everywhere. There are many churches who open up God’s Word every Sunday and their preachers do their very best to faithfully minister God’s Word to God’s people. These churches don’t make the headlines and they are not interested in that either. They want to have Christ speaking to them and they believe God’s own Word when He says that the Scriptures are His Word. Therefore they resist the pressure to do away with preaching or to give it a lesser place in the worship service.

It is most important that the church keeps listening to the Word of God. The word of man cannot save, how­ever interesting and entertaining. At times the words of men can be very moving, yet the word of man has not the power the Word of God has. Only God’s Word can open the sinner’s stubborn heart. Only God’s Word can move the sinner to come to Christ. Only God’s Word can make the believer persevere in his journey of faith. Only God’s Word possesses that power. God spoke at creation and out of nothing things came into being.

The whole theory of evolution is in essence nothing more than substituting God’s Word with man’s word about the origin of all things.

It is the same with many other things.  In January of this year the chief justice of the family court said it was time society accepts the homosexual couple with children as a family. That was just another attempt to give the word of man more authority and truth than the Word of God. We live in a society where God’s Word about sex, marriage, family, men, women, children, work on Sunday, education, etc., is ignored and substituted with the word of men.

The Word of God has so much to say about all of life and every aspect of it. If we only take the ten commandments and the Lord’s prayer and apply them to all of life, as, for example, the Heidelberg Catechism has done, then we hear God’s Word of authority about how life is to be lived to God’s glory and to our own well­ being. But men think they are wiser than God and substitute His Word with their own insight and their own wisdom.

The danger of all this is greatest when the church itself is doing it. That chief justice of the family court was told by an interviewer that the church, and he named a particular denomination, radically opposed his views.

But the judge could reply that there were also many others in that particular church who shared his views.

Why are some in the Christian church speaking as the world does? It is because they have substituted the word of men for the Word of God. They really no longer believe God’s Word is unique. They have lost that conviction about God’s Word because somewhere along the line they have begun to pay mere lip service to God’s Word being divinely inspired and having divine authority. And because they no longer stand in awe of the uniqueness of God’s Word, they have reduced the Bible to being a word of men about God.

Thus many in the wider Christian church do not preach the Word of God. They may still use God’s Word but they reinterpret it so that they make it appear to say something else, so that it fits in with the wisdom of the age, of contemporary men. This sad develop­ment allows people in the world, like the judge, to use the church’s divided voice to further their own cause.

The real tragedy is, of course, that we have a society which is increasingly shaped and governed by the word of men and not by the Word of God. It is a secular society, meaning that the forces that shape the thinking and actions of people are not biblical but worldly. Not the Word of God but individualism and humanism are the deciding factors. Not the straightforward teaching from God but man’s reasoning and logic determine the way things are thought about and done in society.

We are all so familiar with the way things are done in today’s society that we are in danger of accepting it as being normal. But it is godless and also terribly sad because a society which does not listen to God’s Word is doomed. It’s people will perish.

Therefore, the church everywhere must go back to preaching the Word of God and not the word of men. For unless the church preaches the Word of Christ, people will not hear Christ, and when they do not hear Christ, then they will not come to faith, and when they have no faith then they will not call on the name of the Lord to be saved, and not saved means remaining lost forever.

Indeed, how can Christians themselves live by faith unless they regularly hear Christ speak to them in the preaching of His Word? The only way I as a Christian can surrender to God my life and my death, for time and eternity, is by putting my faith in the Word of Christ. It is only by faith that I can live and work in a society that has turned its back on God; only by faith can I say that I am righteous in Christ whilst facing my personal sins and shortcomings; only by faith do I have hope in the midst of despair; only by faith do I have the peace of God when surrounded by misery; only by faith can I go on with Christ when my experiences remind me that I am guilty, that I am the cause of the trouble and that it is I who deserves to be punished. Without faith I will sink, without faith I am lost. And unless I regularly hear the word of Christ I will not have a faith.

It is faith that makes the Christian confident that he is right with God through Christ. It is faith that enables him to say that God loves him, protects him, keeps him and will give him full salvation. It is faith in Christ that makes a Christian a Christian.

But from where do I get this faith? How can such faith stay with me? Where can I go when that faith needs strengthening and teaching? Can other people give me such a faith? Can the word of men strengthen and teach that faith? Will those, who themselves are subject to weakness, sin and death, be able to give me that powerful, marvellous faith? Of course not! The blind cannot lead the blind. All are darkened in their under­standing, corrupt in heart, inclined to sin, and selfish by nature. Let us not be naive and think that among the noblest, friendliest, most wise and knowledgeable of people there will be someone who can be for me the perfect teacher, saviour, guide and protector in matters of life and death.

Each of us needs to hear Christ, the Son of God! Only when I hear Him speak to me personally can my faith in God carry me through all of life with its different situations. Only Christ can work such a faith in my heart. I, therefore, must hear the Word of God. I must hear the voice of Jesus say to me: ‘Come to me and I will give you rest.’ He must say to me: ‘Come and eat and drink.’ The Lord must call out to me in my spiritual grave: ‘Come out from the dead and live.’ The dead sinner, the forgiven Christian, and all people, must hear the voice of the Good Shepherd and only then can they surrender all to Christ and follow Him. Christians can only live by faith and only the Word of Christ can make faith live. The church, therefore, must resist human substitutes for God-ordained preaching. Next time we consider the last of our four observations.

M.P. Geluk.

M.P. Geluk. The Revd. Martin Geluk is Pastor of the Gosford Reformed Church (N.S.W.)

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The Place of Preaching in the Church Part 2

Rev. Martin Geluk. Trowel and Sword, June 1995.

Preamble: As the title suggests this is the second of four articles written by Martin Geluk on preaching. We need say no more as Martin himself has written an introduction.

The Place Of Preaching In The Church (Part 2)

In our previous article we began to consider some observations that arise from the passage Romans 10:14-15 and its context. The first one we looked at was: the aim of preaching is to have people call on the name of the Lord for salvation. We now come to a second observation. Preaching is the church’s most important calling.

For a relationship to exist between God and people, God has to speak and thus make Himself known. Man will never know God by what other people have to say about Him or by what they may have experienced about God. Truth is not with man, it is with God. The speaking of God has become known as the Word of God.  In paradise Adam and Eve had a true relationship with God because God spoke to them. After the fall into sin, God again spoke to men. Had that not happened then all of mankind would have remained forever in the spiritual darkness of sin amidst their superstitious beliefs and idolatry. However, up to the time of the Flood there were a number of generations who called on God because God had spoken to them.  Enoch and Noah, for example, believed in God because of His Word to them

After the Flood, God again came to men to speak to them. Abraham was called to follow God. The same with Isaac and Jacob. God spoke much to Moses.  In those days God spoke directly.  They heard His voice from heaven.  Or God’s Word came to them in dreams and visions. When the number of God’s people grew into the OT nation of Israel, then God appointed prophets and through them He communicated to His covenant people. What God said through His prophets was often written down as well and in time this became the Old Testament.

When in the fullness of time God sent His Son into the world then He spoke through Him. God made Himself most fully known through Christ. Christ was God’s last and final Word. In the OT times leading up to Christ’s coming God gave many messages about Christ through His prophets. Many of these prophecies were fulfilled by Christ and others will be fulfilled when He comes again. At the conclusion of His time on earth, before Christ returned to heaven, He commissioned His apostles to go to all nations and teach them to obey everything that He had commanded them. The apostles wrote all this down in letters to the churches and much of their writings became the NT.

Together the OT and NT are the Word of God written.  It is Scripture. The Scriptures are about Christ and God has said in Christ everything that He wanted to say. God warned that no one should add to His Word or take anything away from it. The Scriptures, therefore, are the only Word of God and the final Word of God.

The word of Christ is a very full gospel. It’s about God, about Christ, about His church and kingdom, about His second coming and much more. To be part of all this is to be of Christ, and to be of Christ is to live in and through Him. It is to be forgiven of sin, to receive the fullness of life, to have the Spirit of God in you, to have hope and purpose, to have righteousness, holiness and knowledge. In short, it is to have salvation. But to have it, said the apostle Paul, you have to call upon the name of the Lord. But to call on the Lord for salvation you have to believe in Christ. But to believe in Christ you need to hear Him first. And God’s Word is Christ speaking. But to hear Christ you need to have someone preach the Word. That someone has to be sent.

You can now understand why God commanded His prophets and apostles to proclaim the Word. It is the only way lost sinners can hear Christ speaking.  Paul commanded Timothy to: “Preach the Word.” [2 Tim. 4:2].  Paul himself said he was “… not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes… ” [Rom. 1:16].

Now all those who believe in Christ, all who have called on the name of the Lord and are continuing to do that, together they are the church. The church is not the leadership and the church is not the organisation. No, the church is made up of all those who belong to Christ. They know His word because it was through the Word that they got to know Christ and called on Him for salvation. The church, therefore, consists of the believers, of Christians. To the body of believers God has said: preach the Word. Do it all the time. At every opportunity. In season and out of season.

The church, therefore, came into being because of the Word spoken by God. The Lord knows from all eternity aII those whom He has chosen to save.  Through the preaching of the Word God’s elect are called and gathered into the church. But the church is not yet full. We will know when the church has reached its full number. It is when Christ returns. Until that happens the church must preach the Word in order for God to keep adding to the church all those whom He has appointed in His plan of salvation to hear of Christ and be saved.

But the church is not only about evangelism. Whilst it is most important that those elect of God, but not yet saved, get to hear the Word and are gathered into the church, it is just as important that with the same Word of God the church feeds its existing members with the spiritual food the Word provides.

The Word is sufficient to sustain the people of God in every way. The Word is the Christian’s life-blood. The believer cannot live without the Word.  It is his daily bread. Scripture says that the Word of God “… is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” [2Tim.3:16,17].

The church, therefore, must see the preaching of the Word as its most important mandate. We need the Word to help understand the purposes of God, to know the power of sin and death and how Christ the Saviour has broken these terrible powers.  We need the Word to realise the full implications of Christ’s death on the cross and His resurrection. We need the Word to understand the dark nature of the world and how to overcome the world in the power of the living Christ.  We need the Word to recognise the subtle schemings of the evil One and how to withstand him with the spiritual weapons Christ has provided.  We need the Word to develop a Christian mind.

The Christian and the church are nothing without that Word of God.  The Word guides us, trains us, protects us, keeps us, and holds us together. The Word does all that because it is God speaking to us in Christ. From the moment the sinner is born again by the Spirit of God and begins to have faith, and then right through the believer’s life until death, his life is and must always be dominated, controlled and influenced by the Word of God.

For all these reasons the Christian loves the Word of God and lives by it. It is in his mind and heart, and even when through sin he strays away from it, he can’t forget it altogether. Sooner or later, in one way or another, God will speak again to His wayward child and through His Word call that child back to repentance and service. The Word of God, says Heb. 4:12, “… is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

The Word of God, then, is everything to the church and to the individual believer. Through it God draws sinners to Himself for Him to save them from sin and death.  Then again through the Word God constantly feeds His people with the riches of Christ and the believer is enabled by God’s Spirit to live meaningfully and to the glory of God. And should the believer fall into temptation and be dragged into acts of disobedience that do not please God, then again the loving Father calls the sinner to return and break with things that can only do him great spiritual harm.

Like the shepherd is to his sheep, so Christ is to His people. They hear His voice and listen. It is God’s Word to them. He goes on ahead of them and they follow Him because they know His voice.  They will not follow a stranger because they do not know that voice.  In fact, they will run away from strangers because they do not recognise the things the stranger is saying and teaching. It is a false gospel to them. The Lord’s people will know how to pick the differences between the voices they hear. They will know it when they know the Word of God.

When the Lord’s people have allowed themselves to become unfamiliar with the Word of God, when they have stopped feeding on that Word of God, when they have not given the Word of God the attention and time that it deserves, it is then that they become unsure about the Word of God and cannot clearly hear the difference between it and the voice of strangers. It is then that they get into the wrong sheep pen. In fact, it is not a sheep pen at all, they are in the den of wolves.  Because of their lack of knowledge of the Word, they were not sufficiently able to recognise that the wolf came to them in sheep’s clothing.

Yes, there will always be false prophets and false gospels. And they will not present straight out lies but a mixture of truth and error. For that reason the Christian must spend much time with the Word of God.  If that Word has not infiltrated his life sufficiently, then he will be easy pickings for the false prophet and the false gospel.

But as we speak so much about the Word of God, then do not think of it as a mere book with lots of pages and difficult passages.  No, the Word of God is the living Word of Christ. When we hear the Word preached then we hear Christ speaking to us. The Word of God being the Word of Christ preached is what makes the Scriptures come alive. But the Word is alive only to those who are calling on the name of the Lord to be saved. The Scriptures are a dead letter to those still dead in trespasses and sins. But when the Spirit of God has made the dead sinner alive in Christ through the Word, it is then that His Word becomes living and active.

The church must continue to proclaim the Word to the spiritually dead. The Word of God has the power to bring life to the dead. Christ stood in front of Lazarus’ tomb and called: “Lazarus, come out”, and the dead man lived and came out!  So also will the speaking of Christ today, through the proclamation of the Word of God, bring spiritual life to the spiritual dead.

Next time we hope to say something about the folly of using human substitutes for God-ordained preaching.

M.P. Geluk. The Revd. Martin Geluk is Pastor of the Gosford Reformed Church (N.S.W.)

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The Place of Preaching in the Church Part 1

Preamble: It has been 10 years since Martin Geluk was called into the presence of the Lord. But he left behind a legacy in the hearts and minds of the congregations he served throughout his ministry, (Geelong being one of those congregations), as well as through his contributions to Trowel and Sword. For the next four weeks we will be publishing, D.V. a series of articles that Martin wrote for T&S in 1995 titled “The Place of Preaching in the Church”. Today, as then, Christians often need reminding of the purpose and importance of preaching in the worship service.

Rev. Martin Geluk. Trowel and Sword, May 1995

What is the most important task of the church of Jesus Christ? Some will know what that is, and others will not. There may also be those who are not so sure about it anymore and their uncertainty may be caused by what is happening in the Christian church today.  We refer to the preaching of the gospel as the most important task of the church.

Those who have always believed in preaching will need little convincing.  But you may have sometimes despaired about the manner and the content of the preaching.  The church’s history will reveal that poor preaching weakens the church’s vitality but good, biblical preaching makes for a robust church.

Those who did not know that preaching is the church’s most important task, might have thought that fellowship was it. One can think of many reasons to support that view.  In so many ways the church is a place where people meet, where there are a variety of activities going on, and where you have friends who will stand by you. Of course, you knew that in each worship service a considerable amount of time was given to preaching but you think it is vital that a church is first of all friendly, caring and open to the community.  A place where you are made to feel welcome and experience warm fellowship. So you would say that the emphasis would have to be on all those things in the church. To have good preaching as well would simply be seen as a bonus.

Those who have become uncertain about the place of preaching have perhaps been to worship services where many other interesting things were done besides preaching and the preaching did not even take up most of the time. There was a lot of music perhaps, maybe some drama and skits, or a bit of puppetry. Some of it was pretty good, you thought. You may have also heard people talk excitedly about their faith experiences with the Lord and there seemed to be a message in it for all who were present.  Such services were far from dull. And you have heard people say that when there is too much emphasis upon preaching then it all gets too intellectual. Now you are not so sure anymore as to what the church ought to be doing when it meets for worship.

A passage like Romans 10:14 -15 , and its context, has something to say about the place of preaching in the Christian church. In this and subsequent articles I would like to make a few observations from this portion of Scripture which I believe to be relevant to preaching.

The aim of preaching is to have people call on the name of the Lord for salvation.

In this Romans passage the Apostle Paul is asking a number of simple questions with the aim of leading the reader, or listener, to some obvious truths. People will sometimes use this method when they want you to see for yourself that the final truth can only be one thing. After you have answered the first question, you will get the next question. When you have answered that question, then there’s another.  The questions keep on coming, until finally their sequence leads you to the all important truth your questioner wants you to realise.

The all important truth Paul wanted the Christian church to know is that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved [vs.13]. But many Jews of Paul’s day could not see that it was necessary for them to come to Christ. They regarded themselves as the already chosen ones of God, which in itself was true, but unfortunately the Jews based their election on them being Jews. Because they belonged to Israel, because they were from Abraham, and because they had the law and the temple and the sacrifices, they thought that all this reaffirmed them, automatically, as being God’s chosen people. For centuries they had been thinking along these lines and it proved most difficult to persuade them otherwise.

However, belonging to God and receiving His gift of salvation has always been based on grace and never on works. The only way to be right with God is when you have been given the righteousness of Christ, and the only way to receive that was through faith in Christ. And faith in Christ comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ [vs.17].

Many Jews, however, were so used to believing they had earned their own righteousness, through zealous keeping of the law, factitious though it was, that the very idea of calling upon the Saviour Jesus Christ to atone for them was extremely distasteful. Because of their rebellion to the whole idea of salvation by grace, God did what He has always planned to do, to reach out to the Gentiles and save many of them. Thus the Lord sent the apostle Paul to the Gentiles to proclaim the gospel to them and whoever called upon the name of the Lord for salvation was saved.

However, God did not completely write off the Jews. Anyone of lsrael who also called on the name of the Lord will be saved as well. For Christ is the only Saviour for both Jew and Gentile.

And so the all important truth that Paul wanted all people to know is for them to call upon the name of the Lord Jesus for salvation. But how would both Jew and Gentile come to know about that? And what does it mean to call upon the name of the Lord for salvation? Well, God has that all worked out.  It is to hear the word of Christ and through hearing Christ the Spirit of God will work faith in the hearts of all those whom God had appointed to be saved. But all people have an inclination to save themselves. It’s part of their sinful nature.  People find it very hard to believe that they can’t save themselves and that they need the Saviour Jesus Christ. And so Paul found it necessary to ask a number of questions that would lead people to see that the word of Christ must be proclaimed and that this is the most important task of the church.

Firstly, how can they call on the one they have not believed in? Yes, how can sinners call on Jesus the Saviour when they don’t even believe in Him? How can they come to kneel before the Saviour of men and pray: Lord, save me?  The answer is, of course, that they can’t and they won’t.  They need first to hear about Jesus. The truth about Him has to be proclaimed and the false things that are said about Christ have to be cleared up before people can know Him, become convicted of their sin, start believing in Him and then pray for their salvation.

So, here comes the next question: How can they believe in the one whom they have not heard?  The answer is: they need to hear Christ! The Lord Himself has to speak to them.  Well, that is also obvious. People need to hear Christ speak.  But how is that going to happen seeing that the Lord has ascended to heaven?  When Jesus had come from heaven to earth then He Himself went around teaching and proclaiming the gospel. But the Lord is back in heaven, so how is the gospel communicated now?

Well, the next question has again the obvious answer in it.  How can they hear without someone preaching to them? So preachers are needed through whom Christ can speak. The gospel is to be spread through preaching.  But who are the preachers and where do they come from?

The answer to this is in the last question. Paul asked: How can they preach unless they are sent? So not anyone can start preaching. They have to be sent.  Someone has to approve of them and give them the authority to preach Christ.

How will it happen, then, that sinners needing salvation will begin to believe in Christ and call on Him to save them?  Well, in order to believe and come to Christ they need to hear Christ speak.  In order to hear the word of Christ someone has to preach Christ’s Word to them.  In order for that to happen preachers need to be sent.

The bottom line, therefore, is that God has put preaching in its place as the way for sinners to hear Christ speak, thus get to know Him, and then with that knowledge believe and call on Christ for their salvation.  Preaching, therefore, is not the brain­ child of preachers, nor is it a mere custom or tradition of the church, it is the God-ordained way to save sinners.

Next time we consider the observation that preaching is the church’s most important calling.

M.P. Geluk. The Revd. Martin Geluk is Pastor of the Gosford Reformed Church (N.S.W.)

We look forward to receiving feedback about any of our posts. We also encourage you to share our posts with family, friends and acquaintances; in fact anyone you think may appreciate and/or benefit from the knowledge and wisdom handed down to us from ages past.

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