Author: Fred Sanders
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Ezekiel, “Uncommon and Eccentric?”
Scottish pastor/theologian Patrick Fairbairn (1805 – 1874) wrote an interesting discursive commentary on Ezekiel called Ezekiel and the Book of his Prophecy: An Exposition (4th ed, 1876) that I’ve peeked into a bit recently. Fairbairn’s comments on the prophet’s own personality are interesting. When I was first getting to know the Bible, I had the impression that…
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“The Lord Christ Was An Expositor”
The puritan William Greenhill (1591–1671) wrote An Exposition of the Prophet Ezekiel, an abundant commentary that runs to five volumes. As he was winding up to throw out the first pitch, he got excited thinking about the whole idea of writing an Exposition. So he started by writing about the nature of exposition, and what he…
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“Something to Do With Something Else”
Before the camera shut off, the police officer who had put the lethal choke hold on Eric Garner looked directly into the lens and explained, “this wasn’t about the fight. This had something to do with something else.” It seems he meant to obfuscate, but being an officer of the law, he spoke truer than…
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Saved by Word and Spirit: Bloesch on Salvation
Here’s a link to an article I recently published on the doctrine of salvation in the theology of Donald Bloesch: Saved by Word and Spirit: The Shape of Soteriology in Donald Bloesch’s Christian Foundations, in Midwestern Journal of Theology, Spring 2014 (13.1), 81-96. Bloesch’s system of theology, Christian Foundations, doesn’t actually have a separate volume on salvation: the…
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Doctrine or Problem: Wainwright on the Trinity in the New Testament
In 1962, Arthur W. Wainwright published The Trinity in the New Testament, a helpful one-volume treatment of a vast subject. Wipf & Stock keeps it in print, and no wonder: Wainwright handled the material so well that only a few pages in it seems dated –though it’s more than fifty years old, and there has been…
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Unlucky Argument for Pauline Authorship of Hebrews
E.W. Bullinger (1837-1913) was a quirky Bible teacher. I would caution anybody against a steady diet of his books, but as long as you’re getting most of your nutrition elsewhere, a little dash of Bullinger can be a piquant spice. You can count on wild uncle Ethelbert (that’s what the E. stands for) to come…
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Hermeneutics with Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson gives some excellent advice in his Preface to Shakespeare (1765) that applies to reading in general, and especially well to Bible reading. Johnson advises readers to plow straight through a Shakespeare play, keeping up a good pace even when passages aren’t clear. To slow down and investigate the unclear passages more carefully would…
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Wordsworth in the West
William Wordsworth perfected a certain type of nature poetry, a particularly spiritual sort of nature lyric. He celebrated the movements of the infinite Spirit making itself known to humanity through the forms of nature as contemplated by poet-prophets who were the universe’s appointed spokesmen. Nature herself elected certain sensitive souls, forming them throughout early life…
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“English Bible” did not mean “Dumbed Down”
Earlier this year I noted the premiere of a new journal, the Journal of Inductive Biblical Studies. The second issue is out now, and among the essays published there I especially enjoyed the autobiographical piece by David Bauer entitled, “My Journey with Inductive Bible Study.” Bauer was one of my first Bible professors at Asbury…
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Progress and Regress on the Trinity: The Book
Zondervan has published select proceedings of the 2014 Los Angeles Theology Conference in a volume bearing the same title as the conference: Advancing Trinitarian Theology, edited by Oliver Crisp and Fred Sanders. Slipping into advertising mode, I was going to say “Get the book, don’t wait for the movie!” But then I remembered that the…
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Irrelevance & Relevance of the Trinity to the Christian Life
I was excited when Kyle Strobel and Kent Eilers invited me to write the Trinity chapter in their book Sanctified by Grace: A Theology of the Christian Life (Bloomsbury / T&T Clark, 2014), and I’m more excited now that the book is in print. I described the whole book briefly in a recent post, and…
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Sanctified by Grace: A Theology of the Christian Life
The doctrine of the Christian life –that is, a theological account of what it is to exist as a Christian– is a wonderful part of theology, but also one that is open to distortions in two directions. In one direction, the doctrine can become overly practical, and get reduced to a kind of applied spirituality.…