March 2020 Ordained Servant

From the Editor. As Paul tells us in Romans 1, abandoning the worship of the true and living God always ends up distorting our humanity as God’s image bearers who are in need of redemption. In the Western world the nature of our humanity is up for grabs. From designer babies to sex change operations, we are surrounded by the folly of seeking to redefine human nature. There is no more controversial topic in our culture than gender identity. Its practical implications physically, mentally, and spiritually are far reaching. Andy Wilson offers a thoughtful examination of a passage in the ESV that could be used to promote the notion that homosexual orientation is a legitimate category of identity.

David Noe and Joseph Tipton present the second of five parts of a new translation of “Chrysostom’s Commentary on Galatians.” Chrysostom’s sharp logic and terse challenges to opponents display a fine pastoral intention. He defends the two natures of Christ and the essential goodness of God’s creation, especially the goodness of our creaturely existence, apart from the corruption due to sin. Always a pertinent message.

Charles Wingard’s review article, “Pastors Need Pastoral Care, Too,” is a review of Brian Croft and Jim Savastio, The Pastor’s Soul. The emphasis on self-care is especially necessary in the modern situation of caring for a pastor.

Shane Lems reviews a book of essays for elders and deacons, Faithful and Fruitful. As Reformed churches have become more faithful in the training of elders and deacons, more resources have become available. This book sounds like a practical aid in several areas of ministry not covered by other similar works.

Allen Tomlinson reviews Ryan McGraw’s The Ark of Safety: Is There Salvation Outside of the Church? Amid the atmosphere of radical individualism in which we live and breathe the doctrine of the church is an essential antidote to this poison.

This month we have another Milton sonnet: “Sonnet 7: How Soon Hath Time.” This poem was composed around Milton’s twenty-third birthday. As Leland Ryken notes, the first eight lines (octave) present the problem, in this case senior panic about the future and the rapid passage of time. The last six lines (sestet) resolve the problem with “an explicitly Christian consolation,”[1] which stands in sharp contrast with a famous twentieth-century poem by Dylan Thomas, “Poem in October.” It begins, “It was my thirtieth year to heaven,” and ends with the foreboding line, “though the town below lay leaved in October blood.”[2]

Blessings in the Lamb,
Gregory Edward Reynolds

FROM THE ARCHIVES “BIBLE TRANSLATION AND GENDER IDENTITY”

Subject Index

• “Paul, the Apostle of Gender-Inclusive Translation?” (James W. Scott) 10:1 (Jan. 2001): 20–22

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.

[1] Leland Ryken, ed., The Soul in Paraphrase: A Treasury of Classic Devotional Poems (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 120–21.

[2] Dylan Thomas, Collected Poems: 1934–1952, Everyman’s Library, vol. 581 (London: Dent, 1966), 95–97.