Sociologist Robert Woodberry has shown that Protestant missionaries weren’t just preachers; they were often a force for positive social change. They encouraged the spread of “religious liberty, mass education, mass printing, newspapers, voluntary organizations, most major colonial reforms, and the codifications of legal protections for nonwhites in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.”

Those goods are tied to literacy. Therefore, it’s no surprise that Christian publishers tend to pop up where Reformed theology spreads. Recently, TGC has covered growing publishers in Ukraine and South Africa. “Today,” Sarah Zylstra writes, “Alexandria is home to a small Reformed publisher called El-Soora, which has sprung up in conjunction with—you guessed it—a small but expanding movement of Reformed theology.”

Alexandria is the Egyptian city that once boasted the most famous library in the world. It’s now translating John Piper’s books into Arabic. It was once the home of Athanasius, who defended orthodoxy at Nicaea. The city is now publishing Egyptians defending Reformed orthodoxy.

The efforts of this small Alexandrian publisher are helping to spread the gospel through the Arabic-speaking world. “And as the gospel spreads, more people live gospel-oriented lives,” one leader notes. “That makes a great apologetic.”

It’s good to celebrate the growth of publishers like El-Soora. And as we do, we should pray for their work to bear fruit through conversions and transformed lives.