April 2016 Ordained Servant

From the Editor.

This month marks the four hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. It has been my habit over the last decade to memorize the Bard’s Sonnets among other poems on my daily walks—no sense wasting time just exercising. In honor of this important anniversary I have analyzed Sonnet 29 in “The Bard for Preachers” to articulate the benefit of the Sonnets for preachers. I have chosen Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 as this month’s poem. It is a profound reflection on mortality.

The main strands of a Christian account of the world are woven through the fabric of all of Shakespeare’s works. That is the thrust of Leland Ryken’s persuasive essay, “Why Shakespeare Matters.”

On other matters John Muether reviews Rodney Stark’s overly optimistic The Triumph of Faith: Why the World is More Religious than Ever. Jeffrey Waddington ponders the value of a collection of articles on eschatology, As You See the Day Approaching: Reformed Perspectives on the Last Things. Finally, Diane Olinger reviews God and Mrs. Thatcher by Eliza Filby, an analysis of Margaret Thatcher’s religious views.

Blessings in the Lamb,
Gregory Edward Reynolds

FROM THE ARCHIVES “LITERATURE”

Subject Index

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

• “The Preacher and the Poets: Some Thoughts.” (Roger Wagner) 16 (2007): 56–61.
• “Preaching and Fiction: Developing the Oral Imagination” (Gregory Edward Reynolds) 16 (2007): 14–16.
• “Preaching and Poetry: Learning the Power of Speech” (Gregory Edward Reynolds) 16 (2007): 17–22.
• “Why Preachers Should Read Fiction.” (A. Craig Troxel) 16 (2007): 51–55.
• “Why Read Literature?” (Leland Ryken) 21 (2012): 75–80.

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.