February 2017 Ordained Servant

From the Editor. I have never been a huge fan of the testimony the way it is often presented in the evangelical church. Years ago I stopped giving mine in public, when after presenting it in chapel at Covenant College in 1975, I discovered younger students wishing they had had my experience. However, I think testimonies may be an encouragement when the emphasis is on God’s grace and its fruit in ministry, as I hope my initiating offering will be. I invite other officers in the OPC to submit their testimonies to God’s grace in their lives and ministries for future publication.

Denominational historian John Muether offers the second in a chronological series of Reformed confessions as part of our celebration of the epochal event which sparked the Reformation five hundred years ago, “Reformed Confessions: The Tetrapolitan Confession (1530).”

Danny Olinger draws us closer to the life of Geerhardus Vos with his fifth installment of the biography, “Geerhardus Vos: New Beginnings at Princeton.” This is where his influence on our church’s history began to have a direct link.

In our feature article Jeffrey Waddington charts the close connection between preaching and the Spirit’s work in “The Preaching of the Word of God Is the Word of God: The Holy Spirit’s Use of Preaching in Regeneration, Sanctification, and Illumination.” No technique or human effort can replace this invisible heavenly power.

Darryl Hart considers the thesis of Peter Leithart’s The End of Protestantism in his review article, “Is This Really the End?” Hart challenges universal abstractions in favor of local church realities.

Bryan Estelle reviews Meredith G. Kline’s posthumous offering, edited by Kline’s grandson, Jonathan G. Kline, Genesis: A New Commentary. It should be a great help to expository preachers, locating Kline’s unique and penetrating exegetical insights in the chronology of the text.

Ryan McGraw reviews David Garner’s Sons in the Son, a comprehensive and stimulating survey of the neglected Reformed doctrine of adoption.

Finally, don’t miss Thomas Nashe’s poem, “In Time of Plague [Adieu, farewell, earth’s bliss].” Nashe was the subject of Marshall McLuhan’s doctoral thesis at Cambridge University.

Blessings in the Lamb,
Gregory Edward Reynolds

FROM THE ARCHIVES “HOLY SPIRIT”

Subject Index

(If the below links do not take you to the correct page, try a different browser.)

• “The Divine Voice.” (Gregory Edward Reynolds) 17 (2008): 144–46.
• “‘Especially the Preaching of the Word’.” (Larry Wilson) 9:2 (Apr. 2000): 30–34. [reprinted 15 (2006): 46–51]
• “God Still Speaks: The Power of Orality.” (Gregory Edward Reynolds) 17 (2008): 25–31.
• “Hearing the Word in the Modern World.” (Gregory Edward Reynolds) 19 (2010): 16–21.
• “The Necessity of Preaching in the Modern World.” (Robert Letham) 22 (2013): 32–45.
• “The Voice from the Pulpit: John Calvin and Preaching.” (Steven Doe) 17 (2008): 60–66.

Ordained Servant exists to help encourage, inform, and equip church officers for faithful, effective, and God-glorifying ministry in the visible church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Its primary audience is ministers, elders, and deacons of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, as well as interested officers from other Presbyterian and Reformed churches. Through high-quality editorials, articles, and book reviews, we will endeavor to stimulate clear thinking and the consistent practice of historic, confessional Presbyterianism.