Book: Treasures Old and New: Images in the Lectionary

Ron Rienstra

Gail Ramshaw. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2002. 408 pp. $24.50.

Churches following the lectionary will do well to make use of this excellent book by Gail Ramshaw, a liturgical scholar currently teaching at LaSalle University in Philadelphia. The work examines forty scriptural images that pervade the three-year cycle of Bible readings so many churches follow. She connects rich scriptural images—the city, covenant, cross, harvest, journey, kingdom, light, sacrifice, shepherd, water, and wind—with many parts of Scripture, with hymns, with excerpts from the church’s liturgy and writings from the ancients, and with our own contemporary lives. In doing so, she offers lots of material to stimulate the imagination of those planning weekly worship.

Rev. Dr. Ron Rienstra has been a regular contributor to Reformed Worship over the years. He is the director of worship life and professor of preaching and worship arts at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. He is an ordained minister in the Reformed Church in America , author of Church at Church, and coauthor with his wife, Debra, of Worship Words: Discipling Language for Faithful Ministry. Together they have three grown children, a multiplicity of living-room instruments, and a tame backyard they are slowly rewilding.