October is here and with it the Reformed Believers Publishing (RBP) annual meeting. Please join us on Thursday, October 20, at 7:30 p.m. at the Wonderland Tire shop in Byron Center, MI (1 84th Street SW, Byron Center, MI 49315). (Note the correct date is October 20, not October 22, as reported last month.) Rev. M. VanderWal will deliver the keynote speech on the topic “The Office of Believer: 1953 and Today.” There also will be remarks and speeches by the other two editors and by members of the RBP board. The meeting will be live-streamed for those who cannot make it to the tire shop.

The board of RBP, the members of the association, and the editors of Sword and Shield also cordially invite all Reformed believers to join Reformed Believers Publishing. The cause of Reformed Believers Publishing is the glorious Reformed faith. The platform by which RBP witnesses to that cause is a magazine that can go anywhere from Kalamazoo to Timbuktu. Sword and Shield has been spotted around campfires in the summer, in school classrooms in the fall, with hot chocolate stains in the winter, and at condos on spring break. Sword and Shield has been involved in the great theological battles of the day. Though men may laugh at the magazine (nervously), curse the magazine (guiltily), ignore the magazine (after just one more article), or burn the magazine (to sear their consciences), Sword and Shield has been the foe of the lie and the friend of the truth. Or, rather, the Truth has been the friend of Sword and Shield. Our magazine could have no place except that the Lord has given it. Sword and Shield has gained no land by the edge of the sword, and Sword and Shield’s own arm could to us no safety afford. The Captain of our salvation has fought all of our battles. Who would not want to be a member of Reformed Believers Publishing to take up the sword in this greatest of battles for the cause of the Reformed faith, in which the victory is already won?

Reformed believers who would like to join may apply for membership through the website (reformedbelievers
pub.org) or use the other information on the masthead of the magazine. New members will be received by vote of the current RBP members at the annual meeting in October, so do not delay!

This issue of Sword and Shield features the first installment of Mr. Luke Bomers’ dogmatics paper from last semester. Mr. Bomers wrote the paper for Rev. Nathan Langerak’s dogmatics class, which covered the locus of eschatology. Luke’s paper advances our understanding of the reward of grace, explaining the reward from the point of view of election theology. The rest of the installments will follow in subsequent months, the Lord willing.

Also included in this issue is Mr. Luke Bomers’ English translation of a Latin theological treatise written in 1605 by Franciscus Gomarus regarding the merit of Christ. The document is published as a companion piece to the first installment of Mr. Bomers’ paper.

Mr. Joel Langerak Jr. continues his profitable series on Reformed education in the classroom.

And be sure to spend a little time with the beautiful poem by Mrs. Connie Meyer.

We also have enough material for a Letters Edition, which we are planning to publish around November 15. This will be a special issue, as in the past, and will not interrupt the regular November and December issues. All of this, God willing.

May God speed the truths written herein to your heart and the next issue into your hands.