Author: Fred Sanders

Even if all you read from Wesley’s Standard Sermons is the table of contents, you can see the basic shape of the Christian life. There are two major blocks of material in the Sermons, just as there are two major factors in the Christian life. The collection begins with a loud, clear, trumpet-blast of grace.…

John Wesley was a hard worker, and had tremendous confidence. At age 23, he wrote to Charles, “Leisure and I have taken leave of one another. I propose to be busy as long as I live, if my health is so long indulged me.” He carried out that resolution. Bishop J.C. Ryle (1816-1900) noted Wesley’s…

In late July, theologian Gordon Kaufman died. His death is noted by Harvard Divinity School, where he taught for over 45 years. “The depth and scale of Kaufman’s work, and his placement at Harvard,” noted Gary Dorrien in 2006, “made him the leading theological liberal in the estimation of many observers. Often he was cited…

I’ve been really glad to see that my 2010 book The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything has been adopted as a textbook by professors at several seminaries. I wrote the book for a general audience, including Christians without formal theological training, but it’s meaty enough for grad students, and I’ve been…

A hundred years ago, in a 1911 issue of The King’s Business, the founders of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles made this proclamation: “Buying and selling books with some, is like buying and selling potatoes –a mere perfunctory business. With us, buying and selling books is a matter of as much spiritual import as…

John Wesley wrote, “Holiness is the life of God in the soul; the image of God fresh stamped on the heart, an entire renewal of the mind in every temper and thought, after the likeness of Him that created it.” Robert Southey, poet laureate of England, quoted that saying in his Life of Wesley. Samuel…

Calvinists sometimes behave as if their Reformed credentials give them a free pass to forget there ever was a John Wesley, or that he is to be reckoned one of the good guys, or that he, being dead, yet speaks. They keep their distance as if Wesley were the carrier of a theological disease, to…

Today (June 12) is the birthday of Charles L. Feinberg (1909-1995), the Old Testament scholar whose name and scholarly reputation were synonymous with Biola’s. Feinberg left a rich legacy of biblical studies (see below), especially in the form of careful biblical expositions shaped by his Hebrew-Christian consciousness and his dispensational commitments. I don’t see much…

Hey, according to the liturgical calendar, it’s Pentecost Sunday! Quick, think about the Holy Spirit. Here are some of my favorite books on pneumatology, off the top of my head. I’m sure I’m leaving out a few even better books, but there’s an embarrassment of riches on this topic. Athanasius, Letters to Serapion on the…

H.C.G. Moule was the Bishop of Durham just after the death of Queen Victoria. He wrote wonderful commentaries on many books of the New Testament, but never did a full-length treatment of Galatians. What he did publish was an itty-bitty 60-page devotional book called The Cross and the Spirit: Meditations on the Epistle to the…

Earlier this year I had a one-page piece about the Trinity in Biola Magazine. My goal was to show that the doctrine of the Trinity is a biblical doctrine, and my hook was to begin by conceding that all the elements of trinitarianism are not all brought together in one verse, and then to show…