December 2015 Ordained Servant

From the Editor. The title of this month’s issue of Ordained Servant is not meant to be provocative, since neither I nor the author of our lead article is in favor of women’s ordination. The Report of the Committee on Women in Church Office (1988) concluded:

Finally, sessions should consider ways to make greater use of the gifts of women in the total life of the church, so long as good order is not subverted by replacing or undermining or otherwise eclipsing the teaching and rule of the elders. … And may the church be wonderfully adorned in these days with gifts from her risen Lord.

In this issue author and conference speaker Aimee Byrd encourages church officers to better equip women with sound theological reading and study material. She warns that much that is written for Christian women is popular but not theologically sound. “Nurturing Theologically Rich Women’s Initiatives in Your Church” is a delightful challenge, chock full of excellent recommendations on material written on women’s issues, the Christian life, and Reformed theology.

Sherif Gendy offers another in a very useful series of review articles on Old Testament studies; he reviews Oren Martin’s Bound for the Promised Land: The Land Promise in God’s Redemptive Plan. David Booth reviews Daniel Block’s For the Glory of God: Recovering a Biblical Theology of Worship, a favorite theme of Reformed theology, and according to Booth one of the best on the subject. Ryan McGraw reviews Hunter Powell’s The Crisis of British Protestantism: Church Power in the Puritan Revolution 1638–44, a book he says sheds new light on an old controversy on church government.

On the subject of preaching I review a unique homiletical treatment of the oral nature of preaching, Dave McClellan’s Preaching by Ear: Speaking God’s Truth from the Inside Out.

Don’t miss the piece of edifying humor from our sleepy friend Eutychus II.

Our poetry this month is “In a Feed Trough Born.”

Gregory Edward Reynolds

FROM THE ARCHIVES “WOMEN; PREACHING”

Subject Index

• “The Concept of ‘Authoritative Teaching’ and the Role of Women in Congregational Worship.” (R. Fowler White) 10:1 (Jan. 2001): 10–13.

• “A Brief Defense of Manuscript Preaching.” (Matthew Cotta) 20 (2011): 38–41.
• “On the Matter of Notes in Preaching.” (Gregory Edward Reynolds 20 (2011): 16–20.
• “Without a Manuscript?” (F. Allan Story, Jr.) 20 (2011): 35–38.
• “The Divine Voice.” (Gregory Edward Reynolds) 17 (2008): 144–46.
• “God Still Speaks: The Power of Orality.” (Gregory Edward Reynolds) 17 (2008): 25–31.

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 endeavor to stimulate clear thinking and the consistent practice of historic, confessional Presbyterianism.