March 2017 Ordained Servant

From the Editor. How incompatible is an edgy witness with the cross of Christ? No wonder Peter tells us: “In your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Pet. 3:15). The “yet” is telling. Peter seems to anticipate our sinful tendencies of wanting to win an argument or respond in anger to persecution. Brian De Jong addresses this concern about our attitude in witness in “Behavioral Apologetics.”

In the history department, denominational historian John Muether offers the third installment of Reformed Confessions with “The First Helvetic Confession (1536),” as we see Reformed orthodoxy take confessional shape. Danny Olinger presents the sixth chapter of his biography of Geerhardus Vos, “Confessional Revision” in which the ecclesiastical battle for Reformed orthodoxy in the late nineteenth century is visibly joined.

I review James Smith, You Are What You Love, in my review article, “Consider the Liturgies of Life.” This is an unusually challenging book on the habits of the Christian life as they flow from public worship.

Iain Duguid reviews Sidney Greidanus’s Preaching Christ from Psalms, commenting on the great value it has for the preacher without diminishing academic integrity and depth. Its detailed analysis of twenty-two specific psalms makes the work especially useful.

David Booth reviews Leland Ryken’s How Bible Stories Work, recommending its uniqueness in teaching the average Bible reader the dynamics of biblical stories in order to help them understand their meaning and application.

Ryan McGraw reviews the second of three volumes of the so-called Leiden Synopsis, Synopsis of a Purer Theology, demonstrating the value of this newly translated collection of academic theological reflections immediately after the Synod of Dort in response to the Arminian system of theology.

Finally I offer a poem reflecting on a recent encounter with Bell’s Palsy. This mysterious result of a suddenly compromised immune system appears in people of all ages, and may have lasting effects on facial muscles, which mine thankfully did not.

Blessings in the Lamb,
Gregory Edward Reynolds

FROM THE ARCHIVES “APOLOGETICS”

Subject Index

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

• “Exposing the Darkness: A Call for Presuppositional Elenctics, Part 1.” (Brian L. De Jong) Ordained Servant Online (May 2016), http://opc.org/os.html?article_id=552.
• “Exposing the Darkness: The Biblical Theological Foundation, Part 2.” (Brian L. De Jong) Ordained Servant Online (June 2016), http://opc.org/os.html?article_id=559.
• “Lord Defender: Jesus Christ as Apologist.” (Brian L. De Jong) 24 (2015): 58–62.
• “The Post Modern Paradigm Shift and the Biblical, Reformed Presuppositionalism of Van Til.” (Larry E. Ball) 5:4 (Oct. 1996): 87–90.

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.