“It is just a phase” is a common expression, and life does go through phases. In terms of writing, if you review the last fifty years of your local ecclesial magazines, you should notice that writers have phases. They appear for a number of years and then there is nothing. It is not because they have died, but rather they have passed through a phase. If they were good writers for you, then you miss their ongoing contributions. Of course, several people write for a long time, perhaps for a lifetime, and contribute regularly. This may be a good or a bad thing; they may not be good writers for you. I say “for you” to keep things subjective, but I believe there is an objectively “good” and “bad” for writing about Scripture.
Editors have to write; writing is their hobby, and so this is just as well. If an editor is not a good writer for you, then this is a problem. If a magazine has several editors, there is a greater possibility that they will write something of value for readers, but this is not guaranteed. It is said that speakers can love the sound of their own voice and speak well beyond the time they have been allocated. The same is true of writers; they can love their own writing and give preference to that writing when filling the pages of a magazine. For an editor, this is a danger—s/he can exclude other writers’ submissions because they love to see their own words in print.
Fortunately (we do not believe in the god of Fortune), the editors of the EJournal do not experience the temptation to prefer their own writing to that of those sending in material; the editors do not get very much material (obviously). It might be thought that the kind of material that we print and circulate is not being written in the community. This is partly true; however, there are Christadelphian websites where the EJournal’s kind of material does appear—and this is a valuable alternative medium.
Is this editorial a lament? I don’t think so; it does not matter where deeper study materials appear in the community (print and/or online); all that matters is that it does appear. It would be bad for the community if the only writing it produced was comprised of “devotion”, “introduction” and “sentiment”, even if these are valuable forms of writing.
What is a Bible Student?