“But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him.” Luke 24:16. Consider this: A mother has a wonderful gift to give to her children. The day comes to give it but, instead of allowing the children to see and receive it, she just talks about it and...

The International Conference of Reformed Churches (ICRC) was constituted in 1982 and was the brainchild of the Free Reformed Churches of Australia (FRCA). The FRCA, however, intended it as a conference of sister churches. The FRCA’s former Dutch sister churches (GKv) organised the first ICRC ‘constituent assembly’ but broadened...

“For our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20) Paul says to the Philippian Christians: "For our citizenship is in heaven”. Commentators agree that accent should be on the word ‘our’. In contrast to others our citizenship is in heaven. Some people in overseas colonies spoke loftily about their citizenship being...

Before the schools opened their doors to commence the 2025 school year, John Calvin School teachers and teachers’ aides gathered to hear Rev. C. Vermeulen speak about "The other 16 hours". The number 16, he said, was arbitrary; he understood teachers did not spend a fixed number of hours...

“But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). The church has always had to fight two grievous heresies and therefore she has formulated her confession with care. On the...

Anti-Semitism, defined as “hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people”, has reared its ugly head in Australia through graffiti on Jews’ cars and buildings, attacks on Jews at universities, public anti-Israel demonstrations, individual Jews confronted by Nazi salutes, texting hate speech and the burning down of a synagogue in...

A few days ago, I stopped to chat to an elderly man who lives a few doors along from me. He told me that he had cancer and did not have long to live. “I’m not ready to die yet,” he said. I knew he was Roman Catholic and...

The Great Reformation of the 16th Century, which we tend to commemorate each 31st October in thankfulness to the Lord, involved reformers making a radical break with the Roman Catholic Church. Lately there’s been a push to “heal the break” and to reunite. A key date in this push...

"Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh.  And the Canaanites were then in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to...

I could wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off! (Galatians 5:12) (What follows is an approximate translation of a meditation of Klaas Schilder – approximate because it is difficult to do justice, in a translation, to the prose style and flavour of the original, particularly as...