Author: Fred Sanders
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Julia Morgan’s Delta Zeta House in Berkeley
“We make our buildings, and then our buildings make us,” Winston Churchill once said, pointing out how important architecture is. Less grandiosely, we could say that buildings influence their inhabitants in many subtle ways. Most people notice architecture’s mind-altering powers only if they live in especially bad buildings or especially good ones. A cramped room…
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How to Study One Book of the Bible
The first method of Bible study that we shall consider is the study of the Bible by individual books. This method of study is the most thorough, the most difficult, and the one that yields the largest and most permanent results. We take it up first because in the author’s opinion it should occupy the…
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Let’s Get Classical: Reynolds’ New Book on Greek Thought
This is an occasion for celebration for anybody connected to the Torrey Honors Institute: John Mark Reynolds has published his long-awaited introduction to Greek thought for Christians. When Athens Met Jerusalem is now available from InterVarsity Press. As J. Budziszewski says on the back cover of the book, for anybody who suspects that “it must…
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John R. Mott
John Raleigh Mott was born today (May 25) in 1865 and died in 1955. Mott had a motto: The Evangelization of the World in This Generation. The motto was controversial, and sounded far too optimistic and imperial to its critics. But as Mott patiently explained in numerous books and countless conference talks, he meant for…
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John Wesley at Aldersgate
May 24 is the day in 1738 that John Wesley heard Scripture explained in a way that caused him to feel his heart “strangely warmed,” and knew himself to be a child of God. He was in a church service at Aldersgate, listening to somebody reading aloud from Martin Luther’s commentary on Romans. And it…
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William R. Newell on Paul’s Letters
William R. Newell was born on this day, May 22, in 1868. He pastored a church in Chicago until Dwight Moody invited him to assist R. A. Torrey in supervising the great Bible Institute (later to be named after Moody). Newell wrote the hymn “At Calvary” (“Mercy there was great and grace was free…”) and…
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Going to California with an Aching in my Heart
This month, I’m leading a class of Biola students who will try to understand California. We are undertaking a theological interpretation of California with the goal of knowing how to live wisely as Christians in this territory. There’s no guaranteed right way to do this, and we only have three weeks together. But this is…
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Robert Murray M’Cheyne
Robert Murray M’Cheyne was born today, May 21, 1813, and died in 1843, having barely made it to age thirty, and having been in the ministry (at St. Peter’s Church in Dundee) for a little over six years. There are two reasons his short ministry is still with us. First, M’Cheyne was happily placed between…
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What Happened at Nicaea
The Council of Nicaea opened on this day, May 20, 325. What happened at that first ecumenical council? What was at stake theologically? The narrative of events and players is available elsewhere, but here is an account of the doctrinal dynamics. The council of Nicaea was a response to the challenge of Arianism. In the…
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Alcuin’s Epitaph
Alcuin of York was born around 735 and died on this day, May 19, in the year 804. He got to write his own obituary, or rather epitaph, which goes like this: Hic, rogo, pauxillum veniens subsiste viator… Oops, I mean like this: Here, I beg thee, pause for a while, traveler, And ponder my…
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Butler’s Analogy
Joseph Butler (born this day, May 18, 1692; died in 1752) was the Bishop of Durham and a celebrated public intellectual. In fact, his greatest work, the Analogy of Religion (1736) was so famous in its own time and so influential for the next 150 years, that it is hard to explain how it could…
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The Departure of G. Campbell Morgan
George Campbell Morgan (born 1863, died this day, May 16,1945) was an internationally renowned Bible teacher with an extensive ministry based at London’s Metropolitan Chapel. For about two years (from early 1927 to December 1928) he taught at BIOLA. Always a popular teacher, Morgan was well-liked at this young Bible Institute (just entering its third…