March 2007 Ordained Servant

From the Editor. Do you think fiction should have any place in the minister's reading? If you do not read fiction you may think of it at worst as frivolous or at best as a luxury in which you cannot afford to indulge yourself. In this issue of OS I hope to convince you that the reading of good fiction is a great benefit to our ministries as ministers of the word, elders of the people, and ministers of mercy.

Pastor Craig Troxel tells us the advantages that reading good fiction has brought to his life and ministry, while Danny Olinger reviews a critical work on the writing of one of America's most important twentieth-century writers, Flannery O'Connor. I hope this whets your appetite for good fiction as it did mine.

Among the expanded features of this year's Ordained Servant will be many more book reviews, so that officers can stay abreast of books important to their task of serving the Lord's church. Due to the number that I intend to publish, they will not always be coordinated with the theme of each issue. Please note the newly posted "Submissions, Style Guide, and Citations" on the bottom of the page. Please note that the English Standard Version (ESV) is now the default translation for OS. Also worth noting is the subscription information for those wondering what happened to the printed edition.

Blessings in the service of the Lamb,
Gregory Edward Reynolds

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 Presbyterianism.