Books by David J. Engelsma - Price

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Written as a response to Dr. Richard J. Mouw's apology for common grace, He Shines in All That's Fair: Culture and Common Grace, this book examines the theory of common grace in the light of scripture and the Reformed confessions, challenges its claim to be part of the body of Reformed truth, and proposes an alternative to common grace.

• 112 pages
• paperback
• ISBN 978-0-916206-81-9

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

Reformed Education is an explanation for the people of God of the fundamentals of Christian day-school education. The book demonstrates that the basis of the Christian school is God's covenant of grace with believers and their children. Treating such vital subjects as the place of Scripture and the creeds in the school, the biblical view of culture, the qualifications and calling of the Christian schoolteacher, and the goal of education, the author contends that the covenant of God controls and shapes all aspects of the Christian school.

In the course of this explanation, the book defends Christian schools against serious challenges—challenges as old as the claim that the state schools are adequate and challenges as new as the home-schooling movement.
This is the book to put in the hands of all believing parents. It will encourage those committed to Christian education. It will educate those who are doubtful. Christian schoolteachers will benefit from the book's description of their work: a divine calling to help in the rearing of the covenant child. Indeed, if the author is right in saying that all members of the church, whether parents or not, should support the Christian education of the children of believers as the church's own children, all can read the book with profit.

• 112 pages
• ISBN 978-1-936054-16-9

Better to Marry provides straightforward, practical instruction for single and married believers alike, taken directly from the classic Bible passages on sex and marriage. Two appendices treat the remarriage and prohibition of the remarriage of the "innocent party."

• 2nd edition
• 128 pages
• ISBN 978-1-936054-39-8

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Book Critique (from the Appendix section of Federal Vision): Trust and Obey: Norman Shepherd & the Justification Controversy at Westminster Theological Seminary by Ian A. Hewitson.

Review by Douglas Douma (on 'A Place for Thoughts' blog)

The contemporary heresy of the federal vision is wreaking havoc on the Reformed and Presbyterian churches in North America. The author exposes the ugly root of the heresy (a conditional covenant) and sets forth the truth of the unconditional covenant, proclaiming the Reformation’s gospel of salvation by grace alone.

• 252 pages
• ISBN 978-1-936054-08-4

Ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

Covenant and election are two of the most prominent and most important truths in Scripture. They run through the Bible like two grand, harmonious themes in symphony. These two doctrines and their relation are the twofold subject of this book.

The author illumines covenant and election from the controversial history of the confession of the teachings and their relation to the Reformed tradition—from John Calvin in the sixteenth-century through the fathers of the Secession churches in the nineteenth-century Netherlands to the twentieth-century theologians Herman Bavinck and Herman Hoeksema.

• 288 pages
• ISBN 978-1-936054-09-1

Ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

The statement in Article 28 of the Belgic Confession that all believers are “in duty bound to join and unite themselves with” an instituted church that has the three marks of the true church has proved to be controversial in North America and Europe. Engelsma’s recent book, Bound to Join, addresses the doctrine of church membership and has received criticism from both expected and unexpected critics.

This book answers those critics, defending the doctrine of church membership and demonstrating that love for the universal, invisible church invariably expresses itself by love for the manifestation of this church in the church institute. This book also examines the "house church" movement and the claim by such men as Harold Camping that the church age has ended.

This book is a must-read, especially for those who have read Bound to Join!

• 160 pages
• ISBN 978-1-936054-15-2

Ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

Some professing Christians deny the necessity of church membership. Others join a church for unsubstantial reasons or leave a church for trivial, often selfish reasons. Many remain members of apostatizing churches because of family or traditional ties. Some Christians find themselves in areas or countries where no true church exists or can be formed. They ask, sometimes in anguish, "What must we do?"

Seemingly forgotten today is the truth that Jesus Christ institutes his catholic church in organized congregations that are clearly identified by objective marks. These are true churches, in distinction from false and apostatizing churches.

In the form of letters to an inquiring (though not always appreciative) European audience, this book addresses the issue of church membership in the twenty-first century.  This instruction is applicable to all believers and is based on scripture, the Belgic Confession, and the important, but little known, controversy of John Calvin with the Nicodemites.

• 184 pages
• ISBN 978-1-936054-10-7

eBook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

The Battle for Sovereign Grace in the Covenant recounts much of the gripping history of the schism of 1953 within the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC), the culmination of the hard fought battle for sovereign grace in the covenant. The book includes new, important details that have not been previously published and also provides the history of the controversial adoption by the PRCA of the Declaration of Principles, the document that in some ways occasioned the schism of 1953. In the appendices of the book, Engelsma gives a brief, valuable commentary on the Declaration, the first commentary to be written.

• 304 pages
• ISBN 978-1-936054-27-5

Written as a response to Dr. Richard J. Mouw's apology for common grace,  He Shines in All That's Fair: Culture and Common Grace , this book examines the theory of common grace in the light of scripture and the Reformed confessions, challenges its claim to be part of the body of Reformed truth, and proposes an alternative to common grace.

• 112 pages
• ISBN 978-1-936054-43-5

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

Can believers and their children understand more about God’s covenant fellowship with his people with his people if they have a better understanding of the inner, triune life of God in himself? Does the life of Jesus Christ revealed in the Holy Scriptures help? What have Augustine, John Calvin, Karl Barth, Leonardo Boff and others offered on this topic?

Trinity and Covenant: God as Holy Family by Professor David Engelsma answers these questions and more.

In the light of profound insights of Augustine, following the lead of certain theologians in the Reformed tradition, and on the basis of the Holy Scripture, this book conceives the life of God in himself as fundamentally family fellowship. The fellowship of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit determines the nature of God’s works in the creating and redeeming humanity. The reader of this book will grow in the understanding of God’s covenant fellowship with his people.

• 158 pages
• ISBN 978-1-936054-44-2

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

Prosperous Wicked and Plagued Saints  is a commentary on Psalm 73 that sets forth the truth of God’s goodness to his people in their trouble and of God’s curse of the wicked in their prosperity. In light of the teaching of Psalm 73, the book takes issue with a theory about earthly prosperity and earthly woe that, for all its strange popularity with Reformed and evangelical Christians, only intensifies the believer’s temptation to doubt in the hour of trouble: the theory of common grace.

• 120 pages
• ISBN 978-1-936054-47-3

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

Is there a "well-meant offer" of salvation to all men? Or is the call of the gospel restricted to the elect only? Is there an alternative to these two extremes? This book sets forth and defends the Reformed position of the gospel call to all mankind.

• 3rd edition
• 224 pages
• ISBN 978-1-936054-20-6

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

Although this book’s controversial contention that marriage is an unbreakable bond for life gets the most attention today…the book is a mainly positive explanation and application of the Bible’s teaching about marriage in all of marriage’s aspects… Marriage…is a Reformed pastor’s instruction and exhortation to married couples, especially young married couples, with the purpose that they glorify God in their marriages and enjoy the bliss of this blessed communion of life.

The timeliness of the book is evident simply from the rate of divorce, not alone in North America in the early twenty-first century, but also in Reformed churches throughout the world…

The second section is a history of the church’s doctrine and practice of marriage from Augustine and the early church through Calvin and the Reformation to the contemporary chaos.

• 3rd edition
• 256 pages
• ISBN 978-1-936054-46-6

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

The Covenant of God and the Children of Believers defends the Reformed faith of the covenant of God by exposing the view of the covenant from which the attack of the "federal vision" arises. At the same time, the book sets forth the doctrine of the covenant that safeguards and promotes the gospel of sovereign grace, demonstrating that this covenant doctrine is biblical, confessional, and traditionally Reformed.

Since the controversy centers on the inclusion of the children of believers in the covenant, this book emphasizes the rightful place of children in the covenant of grace and the proper rearing of them. The author gives consideration to the views of the Protestant Reformed Churches, Baptists, the Netherlands Reformed Congregations, and the Canadian Reformed Churches ("liberated") on this topic. Leading representatives of these churches and traditions join in the discussion. 

PUBLISHED REVIEWS
"The Covenant of God and the Children of Believers strikes a death blow to the heart of heresy which is sweeping through Reformed churches." —English Churchman

• 250 pages
• ISBN 978-1-936054-80-0

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

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Reviews:

Prof. Herman Hanko review

Rev. Martyn McGeown review

The Rock Whence We Are Hewn is comprised of various pamphlets and booklets written very early in the history of the Protestant Reformed Churches—between 1919 and 1940. The authors are two men whom God used in forming these churches—Herman Hoeksema and Henry Danhof. All the writings explain and defend the great doctrines of the Reformed faith that were fundamental to the founding of the Protestant Reformed Churches—covenant, predestination, particular grace, and antithesis. These writings therefore were used to establish these churches in the very beginning of their history. The contents of the book are their foundational writings.

The title of the book is taken from Isaiah 51:1: “Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.” In this figurative way the prophet called the people of Israel to look to their origins. This title calls the members of the Protestant Reformed Churches, including the ministers and other officebearers, and especially the younger generation, to find in the book the doctrinal truths that are of fundamental importance to the Protestant Reformed Churches still today. By the work of the Spirit these doctrines, confessed, defended, and explained in the writings in this book, are the source of the churches—the rock whence they were hewn.

• By Henry Danhof & Herman Hoeksema, edited by David J. Engelsma
• 544 pages
• ISBN 978-1-936054-96-1

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

As the subtitle indicates, The Reformed Faith of John Calvin is a summary (not an abridgment) in one volume of John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. In a succinct, systematic way, the book sets forth the essence of the great reformer's teachings in his Institutes on all the truths of the Christian religion.

Throughout, this sum of Calvin's explanation and defense of the truths of the Christian faith is either expressed or supported by quotations of Calvin. The book is replete with quotations from the Institutes (in the judgment of the author, the most important and vivid statements of Calvin), so that the reader hears Calvin himself.

One who reads this book will know the Institutes and its comprehensive, powerful instruction in the Reformed faith—the faith of the sixteenth-century Reformation of the church and the faith of true churches of Christ in the twenty-first century.

The book also gives a brief explanation of certain of Calvin's teachings, offers analysis of Calvin's doctrine, applies the reformer's teachings to contemporary doctrinal issues, and even, rarely, becomes so bold as to criticize Calvin's doctrine, for instance, Calvin's teaching that the magistrate is called to enforce the first table of the law of God.

• 472 pages
• ISBN 978-1-944555-05-4

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

What is and is not acceptable in a church service? Many churches today cater to the whims of their members when answering this question. This book, using the regulative principle and scripture as its guides, lays the groundwork for decision making regarding public worship.

• 70 pages
• ISBN 978-1-944555-08-5

Ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

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Book reviews:

Robert Burford (Frankston South, Australia)

Rev. Arie den Hartog

William Gibson (published in the English Churchman)

Dr. Julian Kennedy

This book is a critique of Abraham Kuyper’s cultural theory of a common grace of God and of the grandiose mission of this grace, and of those who confess the theory and evidently intend to promote it so that it accomplishes the end Kuyper claimed. The book exposes Kuyper’s biblical basis for his theory and its practical mission.

The first and main part of the book is a much-expanded version of the public lecture given in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 2014 under the auspices of the evangelism society of Southwest Protestant Reformed Church in Wyoming, Michigan. The second part of the book consists of questions raised by the audience at the conclusion of the lecture and of the answers by the speaker at the lecture. 

• 192 pages
• ISBN 978-1-944555-03-0

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

Always Reforming demonstrates that the Spirit of Christ has carried on the reforming work of Christ in the sixteenth century in one particular branch of the church of the Reformation. A successor to The Sixteenth-Century Reformation of the Church, this book traces the continuing reformation in the Netherlands in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries and in the Protestant Reformed Churches in North America in the twentieth century. 

• 318 pages
• ISBN 978-1-944555-09-2

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

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Reviews:

Prof. Herman Hanko

Rev. Nathan Langerak

An orthodox commentary on the confession, that is, one that is in wholehearted accord with the teachings of the confession, and resolutely faithful to them, will be profitable to Reformed Christians and churches in the twenty-first century, not only for invaluable instruction in the Reformed faith, but also for the maintenance and defense of Reformed orthodoxy.

Founded on holy scripture, the Belgic Confession determines sound doctrine for Reformed churches and believers. This doctrine is rich, lovely, and powerful. The confession also authoritatively exposes contemporary heresies. As they read this commentary which proclaims the doctrine and authority of the confession, all believers who love the Reformed faith will be faithfully guided in the truth of the “old paths.”

Volume one covers Articles 1-21 of the Belgic Confession.

• 368 pages
• ISBN 978-1-944555-34-4

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Reviews:

Pastor Douglas Douma (A Place for Thoughts blog)

Rev. John Marcus

Rev. Martin VanderWal

AD 2017 marked the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation of the church of Jesus Christ. In 1517 the Reformer Martin Luther affixed the ninety-five theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany, the act by which Jesus Christ began his reformation of his church. Essential to this Reformation was the gospel-truth of justification by faith alone. This book on justification is intended by the Reformed Free Publishing Association and the author to celebrate that glorious work of Christ.

But the purpose is more than a celebration of the beginning of the Reformation. It is to maintain, defend, and promote the Reformation in the perilous times for the church at present. The doctrine of justification by faith alone is so fundamental to the gospel of grace that an exposition and defense of this truth are in order always. The true church of Christ in the world simply cannot keep silent about this doctrine. To keep silent about justification by faith alone would be to silence the gospel.

• 528 pages
• ISBN 978-1-944555-19-1

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Reviews:

Rev. Allen Brummel

Dr. H. David Schuringa (as printed in the July 24, 2019 issue of Christian Renewal)

With the publication of volume two is completed a Reformed, full-scale, commentary on the Belgic Confession, of which there are only a few in English today. This book is not a summary of the Confession, nor a compilation of sermons loosely based on the Confession, but a commentary. It explains the Confession, article by article, doctrine by doctrine.

Volume two begins with the Confession’s opening article on the doctrine of salvation, continues with the Confession’s lengthy treatment of the doctrine of the church, and concludes with the Confession’s explanation of the doctrine of the last things—eschatology.

Volume two covers Articles 22-37 of the Belgic Confession.

• 400 pages
• ISBN 978-1-944555-36-8

ebook version is available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

Belgic Confession, The - volume 1 (ebook)

REVIEWS: 

Rev. Nathan Langerak (as reviewed in the July 2020 issue of Sword and Shield)
Rev. David Noorman (as published in the May 15, 2020 issue of The Standard Bearer)
Dr. David Schuringa
Rev. Jerome Julien (as reviewed in the May/June 2021 issue of The Outlook)

After a fifteen-year hiatus, and fourteen other published titles, Prof. David J. Engelsma continues the Unfolding Covenant History series, a covenantal exposition of the Old Testament.

The Old Testament history covered in this volume is extensive, covering the account of the life and significance for the covenant of Samuel, Saul, David, and Solomon. This is the history recorded in 1 and 2 Samuel; 1 Kings 1–11; 1 Chronicles 10–29; and 2 Chronicles 1–9. In addition, the volume takes into consideration other passages in scripture (Psalms) that reflect on this history.

This history is also rich in significance with regard to the development of God’s covenant and covenant dealings with his people. It includes the institution and early functioning of the office of the prophet; the institution of the office of king; the stark contrast between the people’s choice as king, in the charismatic, but reprobate, Saul, and God’s elect, David; and the realization of the fellowship of the covenant in the Old Testament in the temple. Among the fascinating and controversial events of the history on which the volume sheds light is the appearance to Saul of the “witch of Endor.”

• 224 pages
• ISBN 978-1-944555-64-1

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

Judges and Ruth, the fifth volume in the Unfolding Covenant History series, continues the exposition of Old Testament history from the viewpoint of God’s covenant faithfulness toward his people in the old dispensation. Professor David J. Engelsma now becomes the author, intending to finish in this and succeeding volumes what Professor Homer C. Hoeksema began.

Part 1 traces the dark history of the time of the judges with its recurring themes of Israel’s departure from Jehovah to serve heathen idols, God’s chastisement of his people by delivering them to the persecution and dominance of their enemies, their crying to him for help in their distress, and the Lord’s gracious deliverance of them by various judges. The conclusion of this downward line of the history of God’s people illustrates the necessity of a theocratic king in Israel, as expressed in the words of Judges 21:25: “In those days there was no king in Israel.”

Part 2 explains the familiar but amazing history of Ruth, which illustrates vividly the truth of God’s sovereign redemption in the salvation of the Gentiles and the inclusion of Ruth into the line of the covenant so that she becomes the grandmother of King David, the savior of Israel as the theocratic king and the type of Christ.

• 238 pages
• ISBN 978-1-944555-01-6

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

Published originally as a series of articles in Beacon Lights magazine, I Remember Herman Hoeksema consists of the recollections of David J. Engelsma, a student of Herman Hoeksema.

• 112 pages
• ISBN 978-1-944555-77-1

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

The Christian’s hope is the visible, bodily, glorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ on the clouds of heaven with the resurrection of the Christian’s body, the public vindication of the Christian at the last judgment, and the enjoyment of the glories of the new creation.

David J. Engelsma writes on eschatology in the service of the church’s hope. This volume treats the magnificent subjects of the intermediate state and the millennium. The bulk of this book is devoted to a thorough analysis of the millennium, with a vigorous defense of Reformed amillennialism. Especially thorough is Engelsma’s critique of postmillennialism, which he sees as a threat to Reformed churches. Both postmillennialism and dispensational premillennialism subvert the church’s hope. Postmillenialism fixes the believer’s hope on a golden age within history in which the church will be dominant—a carnal victory. Dispensational premillenialism fixes the believer’s hope on a fictitious rapture, which will snatch the church out of the world so that God can fulfill his program in history with the Jews. Both views leave the church unprepared for the future.

As Engelsma demonstrates, the last things—centrally the coming of Christ—are the purpose and goal of all the revelation of God in scripture, from beginning to end. This book will encourage the Christian as he heeds Christ’s instruction regarding that coming: “Gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13).

• ISBN 978-1-944555-68-9
• Pages: 350

What is and is not acceptable in a church service? Many churches today cater to the whims of their members when answering this question. This book, using the regulative principle and scripture as its guides, lays the groundwork for decision making regarding public worship.

• 70 pages
• paperback
• ISBN 978-0-916206-83-3

Ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

Reformed Education is an explanation for the people of God of the fundamentals of Christian day-school education. The book demonstrates that the basis of the Christian school is God's covenant of grace with believers and their children. Treating such vital subjects as the place of Scripture and the creeds in the school, the biblical view of culture, the qualifications and calling of the Christian schoolteacher, and the goal of education, the author contends that the covenant of God controls and shapes all aspects of the Christian school.

In the course of this explanation, the book defends Christian schools against serious challenges—challenges as old as the claim that the state schools are adequate and challenges as new as the home-schooling movement.
This is the book to put in the hands of all believing parents. It will encourage those committed to Christian education. It will educate those who are doubtful. Christian schoolteachers will benefit from the book's description of their work: a divine calling to help in the rearing of the covenant child. Indeed, if the author is right in saying that all members of the church, whether parents or not, should support the Christian education of the children of believers as the church's own children, all can read the book with profit.

• 112 pages
• paperback
• ISBN 978-0-916206-63-5

Published originally as a series of articles in Beacon Lights magazine, I Remember Herman Hoeksema consists of the recollections of David J. Engelsma, a student of Herman Hoeksema.

Written for young people, these articles show something of the man whom many know only as an author and theologian.

• 112 pages
• softcover
• ISBN 978-1-944555-76-4

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

Prosperous Wicked and Plagued Saints  is a commentary on Psalm 73 that sets forth the truth of God’s goodness to his people in their trouble and of God’s curse of the wicked in their prosperity. In light of the teaching of Psalm 73, the book takes issue with a theory about earthly prosperity and earthly woe that, for all its strange popularity with Reformed and evangelical Christians, only intensifies the believer’s temptation to doubt in the hour of trouble: the theory of common grace.

• 120 pages
• paperback
• ISBN 978-0-916206-96-3

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

From sketches of the lives of Martin Luther and John Calvin to an explanation of the reformers’ distinctive doctrine of the last things, this book ranges widely over the sixteenth-century Reformation of the church.

The Sixteenth-Century Reformation of the Church is divided into three parts: (fascinating) “Lives”; (significant) “History”; and (fundamental) “Doctrines and Issues.”

Written for believers and their children, rather than for scholars, the short but meaty articles will serve to introduce the Reformation to the reader who is ignorant of that grand work of Christ; to remind the reader who is familiar with the Reformation of its glories and worth; and to ground the believing reader in the truth of the Reformation confessed, as well as to help him or her in the holy life the Reformation called for. Especially the young people of the covenant will benefit from this book.

The writers are ministers of the Protestant Reformed Churches in America and of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Australia.

• 202 pages
• paperback
• ISBN 978-0-916206-95-6

 Click PDF icon to look inside the book.

Better to Marry provides straightforward, practical instruction for single and married believers alike, taken directly from the classic Bible passages on sex and marriage. Two appendices treat the remarriage and prohibition of the remarriage of the "innocent party."

• 2nd edition
• 128 pages
• paperback 
• ISBN 978-1-936054-38-1

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

  Click PDF icon to look inside the book.

Is there a "well-meant offer" of salvation to all men? Or is the call of the gospel restricted to the elect only? Is there an alternative to these two extremes? This book sets forth and defends the Reformed position of the gospel call to all mankind.

• 3rd edition
• 224 pages
• paperback
• ISBN 978-1-936054-35-0

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

Judges and Ruth, the fifth volume in the Unfolding Covenant History series, continues the exposition of Old Testament history from the viewpoint of God’s covenant faithfulness toward his people in the old dispensation. Professor David J. Engelsma now becomes the author, intending to finish in this and succeeding volumes what Professor Homer C. Hoeksema began.

Part 1 traces the dark history of the time of the judges with its recurring themes of Israel’s departure from Jehovah to serve heathen idols, God’s chastisement of his people by delivering them to the persecution and dominance of their enemies, their crying to him for help in their distress, and the Lord’s gracious deliverance of them by various judges. The conclusion of this downward line of the history of God’s people illustrates the necessity of a theocratic king in Israel, as expressed in the words of Judges 21:25: “In those days there was no king in Israel.”

Part 2 explains the familiar but amazing history of Ruth, which illustrates vividly the truth of God’s sovereign redemption in the salvation of the Gentiles and the inclusion of Ruth into the line of the covenant so that she becomes the grandmother of King David, the savior of Israel as the theocratic king and the type of Christ.

• 238 pages
• hardcover
• ISBN 978-0-916206-86-4

Always Reforming demonstrates that the Spirit of Christ has carried on the reforming work of Christ in the sixteenth century in one particular branch of the church of the Reformation. A successor to The Sixteenth-Century Reformation of the Church, this book traces the continuing reformation in the Netherlands in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries and in the Protestant Reformed Churches in North America in the twentieth century. 

• 318 pages
• paperback
• ISBN 978-0-916206-99-4 

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

Some professing Christians deny the necessity of church membership. Others join a church for unsubstantial reasons or leave a church for trivial, often selfish reasons. Many remain members of apostatizing churches because of family or traditional ties. Some Christians find themselves in areas or countries where no true church exists or can be formed. They ask, sometimes in anguish, "What must we do?"

Seemingly forgotten today is the truth that Jesus Christ institutes his catholic church in organized congregations that are clearly identified by objective marks. These are true churches, in distinction from false and apostatizing churches.

In the form of letters to an inquiring (though not always appreciative) European audience, this book addresses the issue of church membership in the twenty-first century.  This instruction is applicable to all believers and is based on scripture, the Belgic Confession, and the important, but little known, controversy of John Calvin with the Nicodemites.

• 184 pages
• hardcover 
• ISBN 978-1-936054-03-9

 Click PDF icon to look inside the book.

Although this book’s controversial contention that marriage is an unbreakable bond for life gets the most attention today…the book is a mainly positive explanation and application of the Bible’s teaching about marriage in all of marriage’s aspects… Marriage…is a Reformed pastor’s instruction and exhortation to married couples, especially young married couples, with the purpose that they glorify God in their marriages and enjoy the bliss of this blessed communion of life.

The timeliness of the book is evident simply from the rate of divorce, not alone in North America in the early twenty-first century, but also in Reformed churches throughout the world…

The second section is a history of the church’s doctrine and practice of marriage from Augustine and the early church through Calvin and the Reformation to the contemporary chaos.

• 3rd edition
• 256 pages
• paperback
• ISBN 978-1-936054-51-0

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

 Click PDF icon to look inside the book.

Book Critique (from the Appendix section of Federal Vision): Trust and Obey: Norman Shepherd & the Justification Controversy at Westminster Theological Seminary by Ian A. Hewitson. 

Review by Rev. Douglas Douma (on 'A Place for Thoughts' blog)

The contemporary heresy of the federal vision is wreaking havoc on the Reformed and Presbyterian churches in North America. The author exposes the ugly root of the heresy (a conditional covenant) and sets forth the truth of the unconditional covenant, proclaiming the Reformation’s gospel of salvation by grace alone.

• 252 pages
• hardcover
• ISBN 978-1-936054-07-7

The statement in Article 28 of the Belgic Confession that all believers are “in duty bound to join and unite themselves with” an instituted church that has the three marks of the true church has proved to be controversial in North America and Europe. Engelsma’s recent book, Bound to Join, addresses the doctrine of church membership and has received criticism from both expected and unexpected critics.

This book answers those critics, defending the doctrine of church membership and demonstrating that love for the universal, invisible church invariably expresses itself by love for the manifestation of this church in the church institute. This book also examines the "house church" movement and the claim by such men as Harold Camping that the church age has ended.

This book is a must-read, especially for those who have read Bound to Join!

• 160 pages
• hardcover 
• ISBN 978-1-936054-13-8

Can believers and their children understand more about God’s covenant fellowship with his people with his people if they have a better understanding of the inner, triune life of God in himself? Does the life of Jesus Christ revealed in the Holy Scriptures help? What have Augustine, John Calvin, Karl Barth, Leonardo Boff and others offered on this topic?

Trinity and Covenant: God as Holy Family by Professor David Engelsma answers these questions and more.

In the light of profound insights of Augustine, following the lead of certain theologians in the Reformed tradition, and on the basis of the Holy Scripture, this book conceives the life of God in himself as fundamentally family fellowship. The fellowship of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit determines the nature of God’s works in the creating and redeeming humanity. The reader of this book will grow in the understanding of God’s covenant fellowship with his people.

• 158 pages
• hardcover
• ISBN 978-0-916206-93-2

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

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Book reviews:

Robert Burford (Frankston South, Australia)

Rev. Arie den Hartog

William Gibson (published in the English Churchman)

Dr. Julian Kennedy

This book is a critique of Abraham Kuyper’s cultural theory of a common grace of God and of the grandiose mission of this grace, and of those who confess the theory and evidently intend to promote it so that it accomplishes the end Kuyper claimed. The book exposes Kuyper’s biblical basis for his theory and its practical mission.

The first and main part of the book is a much-expanded version of the public lecture given in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 2014 under the auspices of the evangelism society of Southwest Protestant Reformed Church in Wyoming, Michigan. The second part of the book consists of questions raised by the audience at the conclusion of the lecture and of the answers by the speaker at the lecture. 

• 192 pages
• hardcover
• ISBN 978-1-944555-02-3

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

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The Covenant of God and the Children of Believers defends the Reformed faith of the covenant of God by exposing the view of the covenant from which the attack of the "federal vision" arises. At the same time, the book sets forth the doctrine of the covenant that safeguards and promotes the gospel of sovereign grace, demonstrating that this covenant doctrine is biblical, confessional, and traditionally Reformed.

Since the controversy centers on the inclusion of the children of believers in the covenant, this book emphasizes the rightful place of children in the covenant of grace and the proper rearing of them. The author gives consideration to the views of the Protestant Reformed Churches, Baptists, the Netherlands Reformed congregations, and the Canadian Reformed Churches ("liberated") on this topic. Leading representatives of these churches and traditions join in the discussion. 

PUBLISHED REVIEWS
"The Covenant of God and the Children of Believers strikes a death blow to the heart of heresy which is sweeping through Reformed churches." —English Churchman

• 250 pages
• hardcover
• ISBN 978-0-916206-91-8

• Ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

50% OFF for the month of March!

As the subtitle indicates, The Reformed Faith of John Calvin is a summary (not an abridgment) in one volume of John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. In a succinct, systematic way, the book sets forth the essence of the great reformer's teachings in his Institutes on all the truths of the Christian religion.

Throughout, this sum of Calvin's explanation and defense of the truths of the Christian faith is either expressed or supported by quotations of Calvin. The book is replete with quotations from the Institutes (in the judgment of the author, the most important and vivid statements of Calvin), so that the reader hears Calvin himself.

One who reads this book will know the Institutes and its comprehensive, powerful instruction in the Reformed faith—the faith of the sixteenth-century Reformation of the church and the faith of true churches of Christ in the twenty-first century.

The book also gives a brief explanation of certain of Calvin's teachings, offers analysis of Calvin's doctrine, applies the reformer's teachings to contemporary doctrinal issues, and even, rarely, becomes so bold as to criticize Calvin's doctrine, for instance, Calvin's teaching that the magistrate is called to enforce the first table of the law of God.

Many seminarians, pastors, elders, and laity, perhaps even a theologian or two, although desirous of learning the content of the Institutes, are put off from reading it by the sheer size of the massive, two-volume work or are hindered by the demands of their calling. This summary will supply their want and, it is hoped, motivate them to read the Institutes itself.

• 472 pages
• hardcover
• ISBN 978-1-936054-00-8 

ebook version  available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

Volume 1 - From Creation to the Flood
by Homer C. Hoeksema
368 pages

Volume 2 - From the Flood to Isaac
by Homer C. Hoeksema
328 pages

Volume 3 - From Jacob to the Exodus
by Homer C. Hoeksema
344 pages

Volume 4 - Through the Wilderness into Canaan
by Homer C. Hoeksema
414 pages

Volume 5 - Judges and Ruth
by David J. Engelsma
238 pages

Volume 6 - From Samuel to Solomon
by David J. Engelsma
224 pages

Follow Old Testament history using God's covenant as the basis for a proper understanding of the unfolding events! Volumes 1-6 of an estimated 8-volume series are now available.

PUBLISHED REVIEWS
"These very readable volumes are a veritable treasure store into which, when the believer dips, he will surely increase his spiritual wealth." —The Outlook 

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

Covenant and election are two of the most prominent and most important truths in Scripture. They run through the Bible like two grand, harmonious themes in symphony. These two doctrines and their relation are the twofold subject of this book.

The author illumines covenant and election from the controversial history of the confession of the teachings and their relation to the Reformed tradition—from John Calvin in the sixteenth-century through the fathers of the Secession churches in the nineteenth-century Netherlands to the twentieth-century theologians Herman Bavinck and Herman Hoeksema.

• 288 pages
• hardcover
• ISBN 978-1-936054-02-2 

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The Battle for Sovereign Grace in the Covenant recounts much of the gripping history of the schism of 1953 within the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC), the culmination of the hard fought battle for sovereign grace in the covenant. The book includes new, important details that have not been previously published and also provides the history of the controversial adoption by the PRCA of the Declaration of Principles, the document that in some ways occasioned the schism of 1953. In the appendices of the book, Engelsma gives a brief, valuable commentary on the Declaration, the first commentary to be written.

• 304 pages
• Hardcover
• ISBN 978-1-936054-19-0

REVIEWS: 

Rev. Nathan Langerak (as reviewed in the July 2020 issue of Sword and Shield)
Rev. David Noorman (as published in the May 15, 2020 issue of The Standard Bearer)
Dr. David Schuringa
Rev. Jerome Julien (as reviewed in the May/June 2021 issue of The Outlook)

After a fifteen-year hiatus, and fourteen other published titles, Prof. David J. Engelsma continues the Unfolding Covenant History series, a covenantal exposition of the Old Testament.

The Old Testament history covered in this volume is extensive, covering the account of the life and significance for the covenant of Samuel, Saul, David, and Solomon. This is the history recorded in 1 and 2 Samuel; 1 Kings 1–11; 1 Chronicles 10–29; and 2 Chronicles 1–9. In addition, the volume takes into consideration other passages in scripture (Psalms) that reflect on this history.

This history is also rich in significance with regard to the development of God’s covenant and covenant dealings with his people. It includes the institution and early functioning of the office of the prophet; the institution of the office of king; the stark contrast between the people’s choice as king, in the charismatic, but reprobate, Saul, and God’s elect, David; and the realization of the fellowship of the covenant in the Old Testament in the temple. Among the fascinating and controversial events of the history on which the volume sheds light is the appearance to Saul of the “witch of Endor.”

• 224 pages
• hardcover
• ISBN 978-1-944555-63-4

ebook version will be available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

The Christian’s hope is the visible, bodily, glorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ on the clouds of heaven with the resurrection of the Christian’s body, the public vindication of the Christian at the last judgment, and the enjoyment of the glories of the new creation.

David J. Engelsma writes on eschatology in the service of the church’s hope. This volume treats the magnificent subjects of the intermediate state and the millennium. The bulk of this book is devoted to a thorough analysis of the millennium, with a vigorous defense of Reformed amillennialism. Especially thorough is Engelsma’s critique of postmillennialism, which he sees as a threat to Reformed churches. Both postmillennialism and dispensational premillennialism subvert the church’s hope. Postmillenialism fixes the believer’s hope on a golden age within history in which the church will be dominant—a carnal victory. Dispensational premillenialism fixes the believer’s hope on a fictitious rapture, which will snatch the church out of the world so that God can fulfill his program in history with the Jews. Both views leave the church unprepared for the future.

As Engelsma demonstrates, the last things—centrally the coming of Christ—are the purpose and goal of all the revelation of God in scripture, from beginning to end. This book will encourage the Christian as he heeds Christ’s instruction regarding that coming: “Gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13).

• ISBN 978-1-944555-67-2
• Pages: 350
  
  

ebook version available in .mobi format (for Kindle users) and .epub (all other devices).

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Reviews:

Prof. Herman Hanko

Rev. Nathan Langerak

An orthodox commentary on the confession, that is, one that is in wholehearted accord with the teachings of the confession, and resolutely faithful to them, will be profitable to Reformed Christians and churches in the twenty-first century, not only for invaluable instruction in the Reformed faith, but also for the maintenance and defense of Reformed orthodoxy.

Founded on holy scripture, the Belgic Confession determines sound doctrine for Reformed churches and believers. This doctrine is rich, lovely, and powerful. The confession also authoritatively exposes contemporary heresies. As they read this commentary which proclaims the doctrine and authority of the confession, all believers who love the Reformed faith will be faithfully guided in the truth of the “old paths.”

Volume one covers Articles 1-21 of the Belgic Confession.

• 368 pages
• hardcover 
• ISBN 978-1-944555-33-7

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Reviews:

Rev. Allen Brummel

Dr. H. David Schuringa (as printed in the July 24, 2019 issue of Christian Renewal)

With the publication of volume two is completed a Reformed, full-scale, commentary on the Belgic Confession, of which there are only a few in English today. This book is not a summary of the Confession, nor a compilation of sermons loosely based on the Confession, but a commentary. It explains the Confession, article by article, doctrine by doctrine.

Volume two begins with the Confession’s opening article on the doctrine of salvation, continues with the Confession’s lengthy treatment of the doctrine of the church, and concludes with the Confession’s explanation of the doctrine of the last things—eschatology.

Volume two covers Articles 22-37 of the Belgic Confession and includes indexes for both volumes.

• 400 pages
• hardcover 
• ISBN 978-1-944555-35-1