The Amazing Hill Road Journal

　　It has been a pleasure serving as a member of the Editorial Board of Hill Road Journal all these years. As an editor of the journal, I naturally hope that people are reading them. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised when a Bible professor from Australia emailed me to ask for the English version of one of my articles a year or two ago. It appeared that one of his students (probably a Chinese student from Hong Kong) quoted the article and it got him interested in it. I was of course very happy that people as far as Australia were reading our journal. We must be doing something right! At the same time, it was also a sobering thought and a reminder that we have to maintain the quality of our articles. Seminary students are reading them and, even, quoting them in their assignments. And their teachers, our peers from a foreign country, may read them as well.

　　I am also happy about the fact that we have been involving our Th.M. students more and more in writing book reviews in the last few years. Many graduate students in the west start publishing by writing book reviews. It is a good practice as most of what constitutes good research and writing are involved: careful reading of the source material, accurate representation of the view(s), fair response to the other people’s views, and good prose writing. For this reason, involving our Th.M. students is a natural progression for both our journal and our graduate program.

　　At the same time, it is also an encouragement to our graduate students. I remember I was having a difficult time with one of my students some time ago. He was impatient to graduate and was getting sloppy in his research and writing. I had to correct him repeatedly and basically gave him a hard time. It was an unpleasant experience for both of us. I knew he was getting discouraged and so I tried to come up with something to encourage him. Since we needed people to write book reviews, I proposed his name. To cut the story short, his review was published in one of our issues and he was so happy that he posted the news in his Facebook. It didn’t make writing his thesis any easier but I think it gave him a much needed moral boost.

　　Modern people are very busy. This is certainly true in Hong Kong but it is also true in many other places. Taking the time to read something deeper or more complex than the average newspaper article is not easy. Nevertheless, it is time well spent since it actually saves time. It takes more time to do the research necessary to produce an article in our journal than to read it. The readers are acquiring knowledge quicker than if they have to do the research themselves. And this does not include the years spent preparing the author for the research.

　　In conclusion, I have this to say about our journal: Get it; read it; now!