April 2026 Ordained Servant

From the Editor. Please note two letters of apology appear in this issue as a response to editorial oversights in the March issue, one from the editor and one from the Committee on Christian Education.

It is commonplace in our circles when we speak of men being called to the ministry of the Word to refer to the external and internal call. This is an important distinction that Presbyterians have made throughout our history. Elisha Walker, “On the Call to the Christian Ministry,” issues a clarion call to properly understand the nature of the internal call, not as an irrevocable compulsion but as something more directly related to the gifts and virtues enumerated by Paul in the pastoral epistles.

Shane Lems reviews a superb recent book, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers, by Dane Ortlund. Ortlund’s portrayal of the character of Jesus as gentle and lowly sets the supreme example that we officers of the church are to follow.

David VanDrunen reviews Christian Natural Law and Religious Freedom: A Foundation Based on Love, the True, and the Good by Alex Deagon. VanDrunen expresses thankfulness for a defense of religious freedom from a very different perspective than his.

Darryl Hart’s review of Sean Michael Lucas’s Presbyterianism (Blessings of the Faith) laments the lack of militancy in Lucas’s book, a militancy that characterizes Presbyterian history. “Whether or not Presbyterians took too much delight from controversy is one consideration, but the consequences of their sometimes heroic, wise, and godly pursuit of a truly Reformed church might not merely orient but inspire would-be Presbyterians.”

Our poem this month is one of mine, “The Marcescence of Oaks.” Marcescence is the botanical phenomenon where certain deciduous trees retain their dead, brown leaves through the winter. These are the feckless dreams of poor sinners.

The cover photo is of the climbing rose at Chestnut Cottage in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Blessings in the Lamb,
Gregory Edward Reynolds

FROM THE ARCHIVES “CALLING A PASTOR”
https://opc.org/OS/pdf/Subject_Index.pdf

• “On Calling a Pastor.” (G. I. Williamson) 6:2 (Apr. 1997): 26–27.

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.