July 1997 New Horizons

Entering Cyberspace

by G. I. Williamson

I live in northwestern Iowa, where big machines now do work on a massive scale that my uncles used to do by hand. Yes, I can remember my uncle John picking corn the hard way. But what took him days on end is now done in a few hours. And this is just one example of what the invention of machines driven by the internal combustion engine has accomplished to relieve us of backbreaking physical labor. Yet as impressive as this is, it is my conviction that we are already moving into an age in which we are being similarly delivered from many of the onerous aspects of nonphysical work. And the computer (desktop and laptop) stands in the forefront of this development. Let me give you one illustration of the computer's value to the church. Our Committee on Ecumenicity and lnterchurch Relations recently received a request for rather extensive information about the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and this information was needed quickly. I do not see how a request like this could have been answered "quickly" even a ... Read more

Computing the Sermon

by John R. Tinsley

Oh, the joys of constructing a sermon! The preparation brings great delight to the pastor's soul. Hopefully the sermon that results will bring great delight to the souls of those who hear it, too! Today, a computer can assist in sermon preparation. A wealth of resources are available as Bible software. Often, these are programs that run off the computer's hard drive. In many cases, CD-ROMs replace books that are on the shelf collecting dust. The software packages range in price, and they enhance the study of the Scriptures and enable the pastor to delve into the text more easily. The pastor copies the text directly from a Bible translation into his word processor. He searches a concordance by typing in key words from his passage. Maps, Bible dictionaries, and Greek or Hebrew texts help in his understanding of the text. An outline begins to emerge, subpoints start to focus, and at this point the pastor produces his own commentary. This means that at least sixty minutes of preaching material is in hand, ... Read more

The Works of Cornelius Van Til on CD-ROM

by Eric H. Sigward

The unique simplicity of electronic digital recording allows an immense amount of data to fit in a very small space and to be manipulated easily. This may be the historical significance of the CD-ROM edition of Van Til's writings that I have been privileged to prepare: that so much information has been placed on the head of a pin. How It Was Produced The project began in 1992, when I asked Dr. Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., of Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, about placing the works of John Calvin on CD-ROM. He suggested Van Til, instead, pointing out that Van Til's one hundredth birthday was coming up in 1995. So I set out to produce a Van Til CD-ROM, trusting in some of his own adages: "If you try to make it perfect, you'll never get anything done." And, "The incomprehensibility of God means that man can never know anything exhaustively or perfectly." It was rumored that when Van Til died in 1987, he gave full copyright control of his works to the den Dulk Foundation, and so I approached Bob den ... Read more

The Internet Seminary

by Steven Vanderhill

Isaiah prophesied the emergence of the Internet! Well, not the Internet specifically, but he did prophesy that one day people would "beat their swords into plowshares." Like the swords of Isaiah's prophecy, the Internet was first designed for military purposes, but has now been transformed into a tool serving the needs of people around the world. In the early 1960s, when fears of a nuclear holocaust drove millions of Americans to build backyard bomb shelters, civil defense strategists began developing a decentralized communications network between important military centers in order to sustain communications even after a nuclear catastrophe. This communications network became the forerunner of the Internet, which now connects universities, schools, businesses, government agencies, organizations, ministries, and individuals through their computers and phone lines. Only in the last few years has the general public gained access to the Internet through commercial Internet service providers. Now that so ... Read more