“A world, and a church, which is hooked on novelty like some cultural equivalent of crack cocaine needs the cold, cynical eye of the historian to stand as a prophetic witness against it. And make no mistake, when it comes to my approach to trendy evangelical claims to epoch-making insights, beneath the cold, cynical exterior of this particular historian beats a heart of stone.”
-Carl Trueman, Minority Report (Scotland: Christian Focus, 2008), p. 26
“If you find me short in things, impute that to my love of brevity. If you find me besides the truth in anything, impute that to my infirmity. But if you find anything here that serves to your furtherance and joy of the faith, impute that to the mercy of God bestowed on you and me. Yours to serve you with what little I have.” John Bunyan (Works, 1:336).
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“In the cross of Christ, as in a splendid theater, the incomparable goodness of God is set before the whole world. The glory of God shines, indeed, in all creatures on high and below, but never more brightly than in the cross, in which there was a wonderful change of things—the condemnation of all men was manifested, sin blotted out, salvation restored to men; in short, the whole world was renewed and all things restored to order.” John Calvin
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Welcome to Miscellanies [formerly The Shepherd's Scrapbook] a blog serving sinners who seek their daily food in the Cross of Christ. Our goal is provide thoughts on Cross-centered living, theology, preaching and pastoral ministry. We review books considered excellent, announce new books that look interesting, and encourage biblical discernment with both. All of this should fuel our pursuit of the Cross. [Meet the winners of our book of the year awards: 2006 winner and the 2007 winners.]
Email: crede.ut.intelligas AT mac.com
Stay on top of the latest posts by subscribing to the RSS feed.
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Current reading …
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On my iPod …
Were You There?
music > off shai linne’s excellent rap album
Podcast #1: 07/07/07
podcast > interview with artist Tom Fluharty
Podcast #2: 04/09/08
podcast > interview with Dr J. Ligon Duncan [more]
Let Your Kingdom Come
music > from the excellent Valley of Vision CD
How Great Your Name
music > by Will Pavone
What a Savior!
music > live recording from NA’07
Rick Gamache
sermon jam >
sermon > A Functional Doctrine of Sin
sermon > The Glory of the Cross [great sermon!]
C.H. Spurgeon
sermon > Without Money and Without Price [a favorite sermon!]
John Piper
biography > on Jonathan Edwards [required!]
sermon > Boasting only in the Cross [classic!]
C.J. Mahaney
sermon > Cross-Centered Parenting [excellent!]
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2007 conferences. Last year we blogged the Sovereign Grace Ministries Leadership Conference (Gaithersburg, MD; April 11-13) and the Banner of Truth Minister’s Conference (Grantham, PA; May 29-31). Click on the hyperlinks for our posts.
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Do-it-yourself Blank Bible. Of all the books we promote, none compare with God’s Word. We pursue the Cross as God opens His Word to us. In this anticipation, we encourage you to make your own blank bible like Jonathan Edwards.’ Building a blank bible shows both a commitment to serious, life-long reflection and the anticipation of God’s illuminating Spirit. To date, over 15,000 readers have accessed the Blank Bible Index.
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FREE book! What is God saying to us? How can we know Him? I wrote a little book — Come Unto Me: God’s Invitation to the World — to answer these questions. You can download the book as a PDF and you can read more about the background of the project here.
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Humble Calvinism. Early this year we started a series on Humble Calvinism, a study through John Calvin’s Institutes. Especially noteworthy is Calvin’s experiential sensitivity to the contours of godliness. Join us as we continue learning humble and holistic Calvinism as Calvin intended. See the Humble Calvinism series index here.
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The Puritan Study. The Puritans were Cross-boasters. So how do we use the wealth of Puritan literature in our personal devotions and expositional studies? Our series on building and using a Puritan Study answered this important question. For more see the full Puritan Study series index.
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Who am I? My name is Tony Reinke but call me “chief of sinners.” For 22-years I hid from God in self-righteous religious ‘faithfulness’ until my stubborn heart was subdued by God’s sovereign grace (Eph. 2). In one moment, after a sermon by Paige Patterson in Lincoln, NE on Luke 18:9-14, I perceived the Gospel as the great exchange, and by God’s grace I released my self-righteousness to cling to the saving righteousness of Jesus Christ. That day I recognized I was a sinner playing the part of the Pharisee. It was the day I was reborn. Now nothing is more precious than knowing Christ — the God-man who died for me and gave me His righteousness in place of my sinfulness (Phil. 3:7-9). Pursuing further up and further into the Cross has become the center of my life and this blog is intended as a place to share this pursuit.
Educationally, I graduated from Bellevue University in Omaha, NE with a degree in Liberal Arts. Theologically, I’m an autodidact under the wise direction of a local church. I’ve been married for 10 years to my best friend, Karalee (a more gifted writer and blogger than myself) and we have three precious kids, a majority of whom are named after dead preachers. Last year I was interviewed by Joshua Sowin about life, books and reading (if you want more info)
God has given me the rare privilege and joy of serving as personal assistant to C.J. Mahaney (if you really want to learn from blogs, navigate away from this sorry one and check out what C.J. is saying on his.)
Misc stuff you don’t need to know but will read because you’re bored and surfing the Internet to kill time anyway: My nicknames include any variation of The Scribe, T-Scribble, Scribs, Big Blog Daddy, Big Honkin Blogdaddy, Big Blog Papi, T-Rex, Blogzilla, and Scribola (take your pick). Curtis Allen calls me by the name Tone Capone. Do I look like an Italian mobster? Here’s my mug.
Email/comments. I’m grateful for your readership and would love to hear from you. You can leave a comment on any post to get in touch. Depending upon time restraints I usually respond to email. You can email me at: crede.ut.intelligas AT mac.com .
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My book wishlist. Hopefully one day these valuable books will be added to my library. All from the The Works of Jonathan Edwards (Yale editions) …
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Princeton Cemetery. I don’t know how I did it, but in the Spring of 2006 I convinced my wife and kids it would be fun to spend the day at Princeton cemetery. Princeton is famous for its school and less famous for its rich evangelical history. I took several photographs at Princeton Cemetery (where Edwards, Hodge, Warfield and the Alexanders are buried). These photos always remind me to be Cross-centered.
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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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Tony,
Can you interpret what Carl is saying in this quote? I am a bit dull in my understanding.
Thank you,
Paul
You bet, Paul. Carl is saying church history and church historians are important as the church moves forward in contemporary culture. Rather than marginalizing things like the Reformation, these historically significant events in history should inform us to how we faithfully accomplish and define our ecclesiology. It will protect the church from jumping at every new wave of innovation. And it brings Carl’s character out, too. Hope this helps. Tony
[...] HT: Shepherd’s Scrapbook [...]
hey Tony,
I am confused by the quote too. The part that gets me is the last bit about having a heart of stone. He doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care, does he?
thanks bro
What he seems to be saying is that in a church age that gets hyped up over breakthroughs in technique, he’s not interested. In a climate like ours that dismisses the significance of church history how ironic that so many breakthroughs seem to be discovered. Trueman has a heart of stone towards these supposed breakthroughs. Make sense? T
Tony,
I am glad I am not the only one confused. Thank you Charlie for commenting too.
I think the problem with a quote like this is the missing context before and after and the use of what I call “camouflage speech”. He is disquising what he truly means with phrases or soundbytes that are a bit confusing. This reminds me of Newsboys lyrics such as Take Me To Your Leader CD.
Paul
Its funny that you posted that qoute when you did…right after the photo of EB (at your sister’s baptism). Trueman just posted an article about “Linguistic Soul Patches” of which he is decidedly not a fan, linguisticly or otherwise. Do I spy one in that picture?
You are correct, Matt. Trueman is no fan of the soul patch. Gotta love him! T
Hi Tony
I stumbled upon your excellent blog and have just listened to CJ Mahaney’s sermon on cross centered parenting. It is excellent. Thank you for posting it. I very much want a friend to listen to this message but he does not have internet access. Is there a site where I can download this so that it can be burnt to a cd for his consumption only?
Thanks again for your blog. Please feel free to email me if this is not approprite to be posted.
Regards
Pat
We must always be on guard against the idea of, if it is new it must be good. Thanks for the reminder.
I found this very funny. I think it may be a cultural thing. British people (like myself) love sarcasm, irony, juxtaposition and bathos, and often find that non British people find us infuriatingly difficult to understand.
I agree Ed! I must have a bit o Britain in me blood. T