February 2025 Ordained Servant

From the Editor. The admission of those with Baptist convictions to church membership has always been a topic of discussion and disagreement in our churches. I have received two articles that express two different positions on the question that I think fairly represent the range of opinion on this topic in our denomination. Neither author has seen the article of the other, and so this is not a point-counterpoint discussion. Two pastors take different points of view: Glenn Jerrell, “Unbaptized Covenant Children?” and David Noe, “How Wide are the Gates?” The content of these articles should help sessions to make wise decisions on this topic.

Danny Olinger continues the series “Jesus, Stab Me in the Heart! Flannery O’Connor at 100” with an analysis of the story “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.” Each month he will be reflecting on a sample of O’Connor’s short stories (I recommend O’Connor: Collected Works, The Library of America, 1988). This twelve page story epitomizes the pathos of her prose. The absence of sentimentality is refreshing and was a stick in the eye to many of her literary contemporaries. The explanatory power of the historic fall and redemption in Christ formed the theological framework for her brilliant fiction.

Nathan Strom reviews The Baptist Church Covenant: Its History and Meaning by Marshall Davis. This book is largely a discussion of church covenants, which I am quite familiar with here in New Hampshire, having been raised in a congregational church and supplied the pulpit in one for several years. It is always useful to seek to understand those with whom we disagree. I have recently been reminded of the fact that many Baptists near me come from the Magisterial Reformation not the Anabaptist Radical Reformation. Those who adhere to confessions like the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith come from that orthodox tradition.

Harrison Perkins reviews Christ Crucified: A Theology of Galatians by Thomas R. Schreiner. Despite the book diverging from Reformed theology at several points, Perkins recommends it as “a helpful overview of the theology of Galatians. It will surely help many get an introductory understanding of this great New Testament letter.”

Our poem this month is the poem I composed for my Christmas card this year: “Taxed.” For anyone interested, I would be happy to send a PDF of the card. In 2022 I published Yuletide: Poems and Artwork. I chose my favorites from over fifty years of making my own cards.

The cover picture is of the Heliopolis Evangelical Presbyterian Church, a church in Egypt that is part of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Egypt Synod of the Nile. The Synod of the Nile was founded in 1854 by American Presbyterian missionaries, graduates of Princeton Theological Seminary. I lectured in Egypt to leaders of the Philip Ministry in 2009. Dr. Abd el Masih Istafanous was in charge. He received his doctorate from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1963. The Phillip Ministry was a small Reformed group within the largely liberal Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Egypt Synod of the Nile. I preached in this church on September 13, 2009. The church continues to be Reformed.

Blessings in the Lamb,
Gregory Edward Reynolds

FROM THE ARCHIVES “BAPTISM”
/OS/pdf/Subject_Index.pdf

• “"Baptism and Church Membership: A Plea for Confessional Fidelity.” (Bryan D. Holstrom) 20 (2011): 47–51.
• “Infant Baptism Optional?” (D. G. Hart & John R. Muether) 7:4 (Oct. 1998): 78–80.
• “Muddying the Baptismal Waters?” (Ryan M. McGraw) 32 (2023): 149–53.

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.