The Complete Gathered Gold

John Blanchard collects quotes--"pithy statements that summarize important truths of express valuable insights in memorable ways." Eventually he began to arrange this collection into an indexed system and from that system came a book titled Gathered Gold. That was followed by More Gathered Gold and then by Sifted Silver, each of which had some 5,000 entries. Those three volumes have now been gathered together into The Complete Gathered Gold. It is a 700 page volume with 16,000 entries. They are arranged topically from Abandonment to Zeal and came from the lips or pens of communicators going back for over 2000 years.

The majority of the quotes come in at around ten or twenty words. Here are a few examples, chosen at random:

• "Man does what he can, and God what he will" (John Ray).
• "No soldiers of Christ are ever lost, missing or left dead on the battlefield" (J.C. Ryle).
• "To deny the fact of Satan is to deny the truth of Scripture" (John Blanchard).
• "God prepares his elect for hearing, and gives them ears for that purpose" (John Calvin).
• "The world belongs to God and he wants it back" (David Pawson).

Unlike the vast majority of Christian quotes, the ones chosen by Blanchard are orthodox in their theology and tend towards biblical faithfulness rather than emotional attraction. The book is what it is: a lengthy collection of interesting and thought-provoking quotes. While I wouldn't consider it a must-have I do think it will prove valuable for those who often search for pithy quotes or those who would simply like to meditate upon a proverb.