Author: Tony Reinke

Book review: The Banner of Truth Magazine: Issues 1-16 (0851519199)

Tony Reinke Book reviews, Books, BR > Banner of Truth, Christian book review, Great Quotes

Iain Murray was just 24 years old when he began publishing a little magazine titled The Banner of Truth. The purpose of the magazine was to confront contemporary weakness in the church (loose doctrine, lazy preaching and pragmatic evangelism) and allow the Puritans and Reformers to speak to the issues.

In Sept. 1955 the first issue was released because “There are many today who regard truth and error as matters of small consequence; if a man lives rightly, they say, it matters not much what his beliefs and opinions are” (3).

Admittedly, some of the language in these early magazines is too sharp and the labels are sometimes too general. Fifty years after the first magazine, Murray admits regret on both counts. “When the magazine began I was only twenty-four years old, and it is doubtful if that is the age when one should attempt to be a reformer. Youth is ever possessed with more confidence than wisdom” (xiv). I think many of us can personally relate. Murray humbly presents these issues unedited.

The first 16 issues consist of 90 brief editorials, commentary excerpts and biographies. Subject matters range from a defense of the doctrines of Calvinism to evangelism, revival and family issues. Most of the book, and especially the first six issues, are largely given to defending a biblically accurate soteriology. But the seventh issue shifts to matters of the home and family, and from then many of the issues feature topics on growth in godliness.

In all, there is a good balance of doctrine and devotion covering a wide variety of issues and drawing from several writers of past centuries. Because of its diversity, the lack of subject index will make the volume a bit difficult to reference.

This collection of magazines has historical significance, too, as it traces the early desires of Murray to reprint the Puritan/Reformed thought to a new generation. We take for granted the wealth of Puritan reprints from the Banner of Truth Trust, but their books would not be printed until the magazine’s ninth issue. It is interesting to read Murray’s anticipation for Puritan and Reformed reprints for his generation.

I found this volume especially valuable because of the short biographical sketches on Martin Luther, Howell Harris, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, John Elias, John Knox, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Hodge, A.W. Pink, Thomas Charles, Thomas Cranmer, John Angell James and Brownlow North. Murray’s lively biographical writing raises the leaders of former generations from history books and walks them into the contemporary age.

Over the past 50 years, Iain Murray has been a reformer, re-focusing the church upon the authority of Scripture, the biblical accuracy of Calvinism and the reliance upon the sovereignty of God in evangelism. Failures on these central topics have always been (and will ever be) dangers for the church. Murray reminds us not to forget the many faithful men who have gone before us in previous generations and to follow in their footsteps. This collection clarifies the message of the church, motivates faithfulness for pastors and points back to the legacies we now continue.

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Where this volume fits in my library (in ranking order):

Soteriology > Calvinism > explained and defended
Biography > Giants of the Faith
Ecclesiology > Dangers to the Church
Church History > Reformation
Christian family > Advice & Instruction

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The Banner of Truth Magazine: Issues 1-16, Iain Murray, 0851519199, 9780851519197, 516 pages, clothbound, no index

New books

Tony Reinke Book reviews, Books, Great Quotes

A number of new books have been printed that will make excellent additions to the preacher’s library. I’ll be passing along book reviews at The Shepherd’s Scrapbook in the next few weeks.

Tomorrow I’ll be reviewing the first volume of collected magazines published by The Banner of Truth. The early BoT magazines were an interesting diversity of themes, quotes, commentaries and biographies that I think many pastors will find useful.

In America, Reformation Heritage Books has recently reprinted Jeremiah Burroughs’ great commentary on Hosea and a must-read on sanctification titled, The Path of True Godliness, written by a Dutch Puritan. Plus there is a new children’s book that explains the substitutionary atonement very clearly for little hearts.

RHB has also released a new Octavius Winslow book, The Fullness of Christ, that looks very good (and I’m told it’s one of OW’s best).

Tentmaker Publications in the UK is printing The Works of Thomas Boston (12 volumes). I think Boston is one of the most important Puritans for the preacher today. These volumes are very well indexed and that makes them very useful in sermon prep.

And not to be outdone, P&R has recently released some excellent commentaries and we will look at a few P&R classics, too.

These and other books will be reviewed here in the coming weeks.

See you tomorrow….

-Tony

The importance of family worship

Tony Reinke Family worship, Great Quotes, M'Cheyne, Pastor's family

“Worship God in your family. – If you do not worship God in your family, you are living in positive sin; you may be quite sure you do not care for the souls of your family. If you neglect to spread a meal for your children to eat, would it not be said that you did not care for their bodies? And if you do not lead your children and servants to the green pastures of God’s Word, and to seek the living water, how plain is it that you do not care for their souls! Do it regularly, morning and evening. It is more needful than your daily food, more needful than your work. How vain and silly all your excuses will appear, when you look back from Hell! Do it fully. Some clip off the psalm, and some the reading of the Word; and so the worship of God is reduced to a mockery. Do it in a spiritual, lively manner, go to it as to a well of salvation.”

– Robert Murray M’Cheyne

Tony’s Book Club pick #2: The Precious Things of God by Octavius Winslow (1877611611, book review)

Tony Reinke Book reviews, Books, BR > Soli Deo Gloria Pub., Cross-centered life, Great Quotes, Octavius Winslow, spurgeon

Naturally, the most precious things to our hearts are not the most precious things to God. This distinction is what we commonly label ‘sin.’ Our hearts treasure the temporary, the cheap and the sinful. God treasures the eternal, the priceless and the holy. The Christian life is a path of aligning our affections with the precious things God treasures.

This brings me to both my favorite book and favorite author (apart from the bible): Octavius Winslow. I have yet to read a book by Winslow that has not pushed me closer to the heart of God. As for devotion and edification, no author rivals Winslow.

Octavius Winslow was a good friend of Spurgeon and it’s no secret why. Winslow is devotional, passionate and concrete. The Precious Things of God covers such a wide panorama of the Christian life that every Christian reader will be ministered to and the preacher will find in this one book a quote to fit almost any sermon on any topic.

Winslow writes with power because, like the Puritan legacy he follows, a simple understanding of the truths of God’s Word is insufficient. Like the hammer on the head of a nail, the experience of the truth drives itself into a permanent place in our lives.

In the preface Winslow writes, “We really know as much of the gospel of Christ, and of the Christ of the gospel, as by the power of the Holy Ghost we have the experience of it in our souls. All other acquaintance with Divine truth must be regarded as merely intellectual, theoretical, speculative, and of little worth” (p. iv).

Winslow’s goal (by God’s grace) is to give the readers an experience of God’s Word, and that is the motive behind this and his other works.

I have noticed that many well-meaning devotional works tend towards the abstract and vague. Winslow’s language remains concrete throughout. For example, take this excerpt about the crucifixion event:

“In that vital stream He [the Father] saw the life, the spiritual and eternal life, of His people. His everlasting love had found a fit and appropriate channel through which it could flow to the vilest sinner. Divine mercy, in her mission to our fallen planet, approached the Cross of Calvary, paused – gazed – and adored. Then dipping her wings in the crimson stream, pursued her flight through the world, proclaiming, in music such as angels had never heard, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will to men!’” (p. 169).

And the following quote recently came alive to me personally. Just two weeks ago, my 51-year-old neighbor Greg was driving home from work on his motorcycle when he did not see a drunk man pulling out onto a busy street. Greg slammed into the back of the vehicle and died from his injuries shortly thereafter. My heart broke when I heard that in the hour following the accident, his family was frantically trying to find a priest to come and give the last rites. Greg was dead before a priest arrived.

I’ve since been haunted by the scene of my neighbor on the pavement as his life was leaving his body. What was he thinking of? What was he hoping in?

A Winslow’s quote continues to come to mind when I consider this dreadful scene:

“All of earth’s attraction ceases, all of our creature-succor fails. Everything is failing – heart and strength failing – mental power failing – medical skill failing – human affection and sympathy failing; the film of death is on the eye, and the invisible realities of the spirit-world are unveiling to the mental view. Bending over you, the loved one who has accompanied you to the margin of the cold river, asks for a sign. You are too weak to conceive a thought, too low to breathe a word, too absorbed to bestow a responsive glance. You cannot now aver [verify] your faith in an elaborate creed, and you have no profound experience, or ecstatic emotions, or heavenly visions to describe. One brief, but all-emphatic, all-expressive sentence embodies the amount of all that you know, and believe, and feel; it is the profession of your faith, the sum of your experience, the ground of your hope – ‘Christ is precious to my soul!’ Enough! The dying Christian can give, and the inquiring friend can wish no more” (pp. 31-32).

Winslow’s book will help our lives end with those simple and profoundly supernatural words – Christ is precious to my soul!

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The Precious Things of God is available on-line from a number of sources but I recommend the Soli Deo Gloria printed volume. It’s dark blue cloth binding is wonderful and fitting such a precious volume. (Update: the book is now officially out-of-print. I cannot tell you how affirming it is when you tell people it’s the best book you have read and the publisher stops printing it at the very same time =) Second-guessing my sanity, anyone?).

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– Read The Precious Things of God online for free here.

– My friend Joe at StillTruth recently converted several Winslow books into Libronix format for Logos Bible software. A great free resource!

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The Precious Things of God, Octavius Winslow, Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1860/1994, 424 pages, 1877611611. (Out of print).

Tony’s Book Club pick #3: The Everlasting Righteousness by Horatius Bonar (0851516556, book review)

Tony Reinke Banner of Truth, Book reviews, Books, BR > Banner of Truth, Cross of Christ, Cross-centered life, Horatius Bonar, John Bunyan

Martin Luther once said, “This article of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, is the head and cornerstone of the church, which alone begets, nourishes, builds, preserves and protects the church. Without it, the church of God cannot subsist but one hour.” He was not overstating this fact. At the heart of biblical Christianity stands the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone. And no Top Ten list of books is complete without volume on this great doctrine.

Today, God’s grace has provided Christians with growing depository of excellent books on this issue. The God Who Justifies by James R. White comes to mind, and R.C. Sproul, John Piper and C.J. Mahaney have also contributed excellent contemporary works. But I am frequently drawn back to Horatius Bonar’s brief and devotional work.

Written in 1874 and republished by The Banner of Truth in 1993, The Everlasting Righteousness stands (in my opinion) as the greatest book on the importance of the Cross and our imputed righteousness. It is clear, concise, devotional and beautifully written.

So what does Bonar mean by the phrase, The Everlasting Righteousness?

“We are hidden in Christ. God seeks for us; and when at last He discovers us in our hiding-place, it is not we that He finds, but Christ; so complete is the exchange of persons, so perfect and so glorious the disguise. Yet is is not a disguise which shall ever be taken off, nor of which shall have cause to be ashamed. It remains ours for ever. It is an everlasting righteousness” (pp. 79-80).

For Bonar, however, the importance of the Cross extends beyond the Christian’s conversion. Justification ushers in a Cross-centered life for today and an eternal Cross-centered life to come. This emphasis on the Cross-centered life is where Bonar really shines:

“… never shall the redeemed be independent of the cross, or cease to draw from its fulness” (p. 64).

“The broken body and shed blood of the Son of God form the viands on which we feast; and it is under the shadow of the cross that we sit down to partake of these, and find refreshment for our daily journey, strength for our hourly warfare. His flesh is meat indeed, His blood is drink indeed” (p. 125).

And my favorite quote: “Christ crucified is to be the burden of our preaching, and the substance of our belief, from first to last. At no time in the saint’s life does he cease to need the Cross” (p. 117). The Christian faith and life centers around the Cross. There are no comparable substitutes. We NEED the Cross at every point. (And wouldn’t our lives and sermons be improved if we frequently used the phrase, “need the Cross”?)

Dwelling upon justification as crucial for the Christian life, John Bunyan once wrote, “Think not that to live always on Christ for justification is a low and beggarly thing, – a staying at the foundation. For, let me tell you, depart from a sense of the meritorious means of your justification before God, and you will quickly grow light, and frothy, and vain.”

Because Bonar is clear on the doctrine of justification, he is also clear on related issues like the ugliness and reality of sin, the illustrations of biblical imputation, the necessity of a blood sacrifice and the dangers of wrong views of justification.

If you are looking for a readable book that exalts the Cross-centered life, relishes in the righteousness found only in the substitution of the Lamb, and magnifies the worth and beauty of Christ, turn to a talented hymn writer. Horatius Bonar has given us a clear book of great value on the central doctrine of the church. His poetic style will warm the heart after multiple readings and his clarity will equip the preacher with a lifetime of precious quotes.

The beauty of The Everlasting Righteousness is that it will hold us to our foundation and keep our hearts from growing frothy and vain.
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The Everlasting Righteousness, Horatius Bonar, Banner of Truth, 1874/1993, 0851516556, paperback, 212 pages