The Scriptorium Daily

Author: Fred Sanders

  • Baby Jesus, Mighty Warrior

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    Fred Sanders
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    If God performed a mighty act of salvation in sending his Son, then we have to interpret the helpless baby of Bethlehem as the conqueror who showed God’s salvation to all the ends of the earth. Filling out so sharp a paradox is a big challenge for the poetic imagination, but a few have attempted…

  • Present Accounted For

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    Fred Sanders
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    A little drawing of a boy getting a nutcracker toy soldier for Christmas, you say? Carried out with characteristic verve, but in the unpromising medium of #2 pencil and crumpled yellow legal pad? No, no, no, there is much more going on here. Attend to the actual placement of the image on the page. The…

  • When is Psalm 98 True?

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    Fred Sanders
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    “O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.” Clearly Psalm 98 is a psalm about salvation. The word “salvation” occurs three times in a consistent translation of the first three verses (KJV and others interpret the word…

  • New Song for God’s Victory (Psalm 98)

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    Fred Sanders
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    Psalm 98 breaks down nicely into three parts: Verses 1-3 tell you why to praise God: Because of the marvelous deeds of salvation he has done. Verses 4-6 tell you how to praise: Loudly, joyfully, with guitars and trumpets. Then verses 7-9 say who should praise: The sea, the world, the rivers, the hills, which…

  • Psalm 98 for Christmas

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    Fred Sanders
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    “Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvellous things.” — Psalm 98:1 Psalm 98 is a remarkable Psalm, and according to an ancient Christian tradition, it is a Christmas Psalm, an Old Testament text that is appropriate for reading at this time of year. What’s Christmassy about it, you might…

  • Alexander the Corrector

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    Fred Sanders
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    The January 2007 issue of First Things is already available, and in the “Briefly Noted” section you’ll find my review of Alexander the Corrector, a book about Alexander Cruden of Cruden’s Concordance fame. The editors at First Things snipped a few words here and there to make it fit better, generally improving the review. If…

  • Saintly Scholars, then and now

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    Fred Sanders
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    Remarks from a college honorary society induction ceremony, Dec. 15. As a young man around the year 1723, America’s greatest theologian, Jonathan Edwards, wrote out a series of personal resolutions, usually published as “Resolutions of a Saintly Scholar.” These 70 numbered resolutions are soul-searching commitments to lead a life of which he would not be…

  • So Hard to Communicate

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    Fred Sanders
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    “Hello,” says the tall stick figure whose top hat is white and black. “No te entiendo,” responds the short stick figure whose top hat is black and white. His words strike the other stick figure like a sack of doorknobs, knocking him off balance. The words are jumbled and disorienting. It’s so hard to communicate…

  • Creation from Nothing, by the Trinity

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    Fred Sanders
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    The late Colin Gunton (1941-2003), in a flurry of productivity just before his untimely death, put out a bunch of books that are remarkable for containing enough ideas that they could each have been expanded into more books. Looking for a half-remembered quotation, I recently skimmed back through my copy of his book The Triune…

  • We All Like Sheep

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    Fred Sanders
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    And who wouldn’t like sheep? With a cloud for a body and nub for a tail, this ovine citizen has a distinctive strut. He throws his sloping hooves out in front of him and pulls himself along the green pasture beside the still waters – – his posture suggests he’s walking backwards, but be not…

  • Peter the Fisherman Philosopher

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    Fred Sanders
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    I was invited to contribute to a Banned Book Colloquium in Biola’s library on September 25, 2006. I presented the following brief paper on the most important banned book in Biola’s history. In 1927, the second Dean of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, John Murdoch MacInnis, wrote a book called Peter the Fisherman Philosopher:…

  • Nature, Grace, and Glory

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    Fred Sanders
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    Three fundamental categories for theologizing are nature, grace, and glory. These terms indicate things you’ve already thought about before, but they don’t quite map onto other terms you might already know. Nature is what a thing is in itself. Human nature is a created good, a thing with its own integrity and a recognizable completeness…