Review: The Complete Gathered Gold: A Treasury of Quotations for Christians
Reformation Heritage Books just sent me this copy of The Complete Gathered Gold, compiled by John Blanchard, and I want to spend a few minutes on what you'll find in it.
The look
It's absolutely beautiful: faux leather that feels really good and looks very clean, with gold embossing. That doesn't change what's in the book, but it showcases it. As the title suggests, it is gold.
Two cosmetic oddities. They picked a rather strange, very shiny gold ribbon that looks like something from a birthday party! I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it on a book. And the endpapers are a bleached white while the interior pages are a cream white, which I'm not sure why they did. Neither changes the gold found inside.
What's inside
The subtitle is A Treasury of Quotations for Christians, and that's exactly what it is. The preface to this new edition begins with how often we wish we could find just the right words, and Proverbs 25:11: "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver." On topic after topic, over hundreds of pages, this book helps you find the right words as you study, write and learn.
If you saw my review of Ore from the Puritans' Mine, the layout is very similar. But this one draws on every age of the church: Chrysostom in the early church; William Booth, who was in the 1700s; Philip Doddridge, Charles Wesley and Isaac Watts from the Great Awakening; David Livingstone, C. S. Lewis, Billy Graham. So you get not only a wide range of voices on any topic, but a full picture of what the church has believed, not just the Puritans. The Puritans and the Reformed are well represented too: Stephen Charnock, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spurgeon, Ryle, William Bridge, Kuyper, Douglas Kelly, John Owen, and William Plumer, whose book on pastoral theology we're reviewing in a couple of weeks.
Everything is sorted alphabetically by topic, so you can find exactly what you're looking for. Say you're studying man: here's a whole section on man from all these angles. If you were writing a paper on humanity, you could practically use them as your subpoints, with all your sources right there.
In the back there's a topical index, which is very helpful. One area I think RHB could improve in a future edition is an author index. As it is, there's no way to know exactly who's quoted, or how many times.
Would I recommend it?
Yes. Whatever you're studying, writing on or trying to learn, this book will come in handy. It's full of biblical knowledge and theological soundness, while giving you the full picture from a very wide range of people. Thanks again to RHB for sending me this copy.
Soli Deo Gloria!
