The Spring 2019 issue of the Protestant Reformed Theological Journal is now here!
The print copies have arrived from the printer and will be mailed next week, while the pdf is available on the seminary's Journal page. Watch for the ePub format in the weeks to come.
If you would like to receive a print copy and/or be added to our mailing list, please call the seminary or email us at the contact information provided on this webpage.
Prof. R. Cammenga includes these comments on the contents in his "Editor's Notes":
This issue includes a number of articles that we are confident you will find edifying, instructive, and thought-provoking. Our lead article is by the Reverend Martyn McGeown and is entitled “Faith: A Bond, a Gift, and an Activity, but Not a Condition for Salvation.” Rev. McGeown focuses on how we are to understand the activity of faith, while at the same time rejecting any teaching that makes faith a condition for salvation, or denies the activity of faith. With appeal to Scripture, the Reformed confessions, and the Reformed tradition, he demonstrates how properly Reformed Christians are to view the activity of faith.
The undersigned contributes to this issue an article on the Old Testament judge, Jephthah. The article focuses on the vow that Jephthah made to offer up to the Lord whatever came out of his house to greet him, when he returned victorious from the battle against the Ammonites. On his return, his daughter came out of the house to meet him “with timbrels and with dances” (Judges 11:34). Controversy swirls around whether or not Jephthah actually offered his daughter up as a human sacrifice, and whether, therefore, his vow was righteous or rash. Read the article to discover my viewpoint and the grounds for the support of the position that I take.
The Reverend Garrett J. Eriks, pastor of the Hudsonville Protestant Reformed Church in Hudsonville, Michigan, contributes an article entitled, “The Needed Light of Biblical Counseling.” Pastor Eriks is doing advanced degree work in the area of pastoral counseling. His contribution is a revised form of a paper that he submitted for one of his courses. In the article, he demonstrates the need for sound, biblical counseling for the people of God in their distresses, burdens, and sins. The article is a call for truly biblical counseling, as opposed to unbiblical, Freudian psychology, which is the basis for much of what passes for counseling in our day.
This issue of PRTJ also includes two entries that bring to a conclusion two bibliographies that we have been publishing in installments. My colleague, Prof. Douglas J. Kuiper, concludes his bibliography of the writings of George M. Ophoff, one of the original faculty members of the Protestant Reformed Theological Seminary. Our readers should know that Prof. Kuiper has recently been awarded his Master in Theology degree from Calvin Theological Seminary. Congratulations to Prof. Kuiper on this achievement! I also bring to a close my “John Calvin Research Bibliography.” The last two entries are sections #17 and #18: “Calvin’s Doctrine of the Last Things,” and “Calvin’s Views on Worship.” It is possible that in the future the entire “John Calvin Research Bibliography” and the George Martin Ophoff bibliography will be published in some form or other, and made available by our seminary.
And there are our book reviews. We are able to include eight reviews in this issue. The reviews are always an enjoyable and worthwhile part of PRTJ. Thanks to all our reviewers, but special thanks to Prof. David Engelsma, who, although emeritus, continues to write and to produce. His book reviews are always insightful and worthwhile.
Read and enjoy!
Soli Deo Gloria!
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