An untitled series of twelve devotional sketches about the patriarchs. Kuyper began the series in the first issue of the Amsterdamsche Kerkbode. Beginning with the second sketch the installments are numbered; a biblical phrase characteristic of the patriarch is printed above every sketch. Kuyper uses his descriptions of the lives of Ruben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naftali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulon, Joseph, and Benjamin to give much practical advice to the congregation about how to deal with its present circumstances. See also 1889.02.

The Amsterdamsche Kerkbode was the first church newletter of the Dutch Reformed Church (doleerende). Kuyper had tried in 1872 to get a church newsletter started in Amsterdam (see 1872.04), but that project had resulted in just a single sample issue (in which no contribution by Kuyper can be identified). Now, however, circumstances compelled the establishment of a paper for the nascent church. Commenting on an article reprinted from the Utrechtsche Kerkbode in De Heraut, no. 520, December 11, 1887, Kuyper asserts that the purpose of a church newsletter is more to inform believers about the church of Jesus Christ than to disseminate devotional literature.