December 17 Today in OPC History

On December 17, 1967, Calvary OPC, Glenside dedicated the pulpit to the memory of the Rev. Dr. Ned B. Stonehouse. Dr. Stonehouse’s friend and colleague at Westminster Seminary, the Rev. Dr. Cornelius Van Til, spoke these words on this occasion.

We dedicate this pulpit to the memory of Dr. Ned Bernard Stonehouse, who, together with his family, worshipped with this congregation from its inception and who worshipped here on the morning of the very last day of his life.

Of course, we dedicate this pulpit first of all to Christ, the king of his church. At the same time it is fitting that as we do so we keep in thankful remembrance the name of his servant. Dr. Stonehouse loved and labored with diligence in Westminster Theological Seminary. He also labored with love and devotion in this congregation, in the Presbytery of Philadelphia, in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and in the church of Christ universal. But in and through it all he loved and labored to the praise of his Savior.

God made Dr. Stonehouse an able minister of the New Testament. When I say this I am not thinking of the gifts of heart and mind with which his Creator-Redeemer had endowed him. He did have these gifts in large measure. His professors in the New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, Dr. William Park Armstrong and Dr. J. Gresham Machen as well as the professor supervising his doctoral work at the Free University of Amsterdam, Dr. F. H. Grosheide, all spoke with glowing terms of these his extraordinary gifts.

But he knew from his earliest days as a student that if he were to become an able minister of the New Testament then he must say with Paul: “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God” (2 Cor. 3:5).

Picture: Ned Stonehouse