When you make a plan to kill a public person, the kind of public person who is animated by a powerful inner force, you’d better make sure to kill him. But even if you succeed there’s that powerful inner force to deal with: what if,
Fred Sanders
Fred is a systematic theologian with an emphasis on the doctrine of the Trinity. He and his wife Susan have two adult children and are members of Grace Evangelical Free Church. Read more about Fred here.
Posts
Essay / Theology
Godforsaken For Us
Jesus calls out from the cross: “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). Strong words of weakness. The very first hearers misunderstood them: “Behold, he is calling Elijah.” But he wasn’t calling on Elijah, of
Essay / Theology
Biola and the Flu, 1919
A few notes here on how the Bible Institute of Los Angeles experienced the devastating influenza pandemic (the “Spanish Flu”) one hundred years ago. Gleaned from online back issues of Biola’s classic old King’s Business magazine. Because the King’s Business was only a monthly magazine
Essay / Theology
Praying (Hard) Theology: Litany of the Summa
Imagine studying the doctrinal theology of Thomas Aquinas and then turning it, in considerable detail, into praise.That’s what sixteenth-century Jesuit Francis Borgia did. He wrote a book which is basically key sections of the Summa Theologia cast into the form of prayers. Litanies, to be
Essay / Theology
Chester, Delighting in the Trinity
Here is an old book review of an older book: Tim Chester’s Delighting in the Trinity: Why Father, Son, and Spirit are Good News came out back in 2005. When it was re-released in 2010, a popular website asked me to review it. That review
Spiritual Manifestation of the Son of God
Fletcher of Madeley (1729-1785), one of the first Methodist theologians, wrote a small spiritual masterpiece called Six Letters on the Spiritual Manifestation of the Son of God. It gets republished now and then: In a 1968 printing, Martyn Lloyd-Jones called it “undoubtedly a spiritual classic”
Essay / Theology
“Does it Render Men More Holy and Happy?” (Fletcher)
The important early Methodist John William Fletcher (1729-1785) wrote a short piece called Remarks on the Trinity, which has some, well, remarkable lines in it. On the Trinity. Fletcher has much to say on the subject of the Trinity, but apparently he was specifically provoked
Essay / Theology
Leontius of Byzantium (Works)
Brian Daley has published (2017) his edition of Leontius of Byzantium’s Complete Works. in a handsome 600-page volume from Oxford Press (at a handsomely huge price, of course). It’s got Leontius’ Greek on the left pages and Daley’s English translation on right, plus a masterful
Essay / Theology
Trinity and Ecclesiology
When theologians try to make a connection between the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the church, they take three main approaches: communion, mission, or structural analogy. Communion: This approach emphasizes the overlap between two vocabularies of communion: inner-trinitarian perichoresis on the one
Levy, Introducing Medieval Biblical Interpretation
Here’s a very short (350 words) review of Ian Christopher Levy’s book Introducing Medieval Biblical Interpretation (Baker, 2018). The review just came out in the Jan 2020 issue of Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology. My Torrey colleague Greg Peters endorsed the book with
Essay / Theology
God was Always Ready for Christmas
Here’s a three-minute lesson I taught to the kids (ages 5-11) at church last week. This is a wrapped Christmas package. It takes some planning to put together a Christmas present like this. You have to think of what somebody wants or needs, then go
Voice of the Father (Hugh of St. Victor)
In his work On the Three Days, Hugh of St. Victor considers some pretty profound trinitarian theology, giving special attention to how the Father loves the Son. It’s a complex meditation, and maybe all I need to say is that it is very Augustinian, and