Category: Blog
-
Today Jim Elliot Was Killed (1956)
Today in 1956, five missionaries to the Auca indians in Ecuador were killed. Their deaths brought a sudden end to the project they called “Operation Auca,” but the tragedy became a defining moment in the history of evangelical missions. Hundreds of young people were inspired to take up missionary work, thousands were moved to deeper…
-
Today Athanasius Got the New Testament Exactly Right (367)
Athanasius of Alexandria (who died in 373) was a marvel: He refuted the heresy of Arianism, wrote voluminously in defense of the truth, oversaw the Christian church in Alexandria, was the official calendar-keeper for when Easter was to be celebrated, and —in his spare time— was the first to write get the Table of Contents…
-
Happy, Useful Christians Who Had Been Murderers
“Dr. Torrey, How do you reconcile the contradiction in the Bible between I John 1:9 and I John 3:15? In the first passage we are told that if we confess our sins they will be forgiven: in the last passage we are told that there is no forgiveness for the murderer.” There is no contradiction…
-
Today Charles Spurgeon Was Converted (1850)
Today in 1850, Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) heard the voice of God calling him in the words of Isaiah 45:22, through the sermon of a Primitive Methodist preacher: “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” Spurgeon looked and was saved at age 15, and went on to become one…
-
ASK
Each new year is unsullied. It is time and space that, to our knowledge, no humans have traversed or occupied. We make plans, set goals, and create resolutions for the 31,536,000 seconds (give or take a few seconds) that we believe must be better than those in the preceding year. We are never satisfied with…
-
Today is Robert Morrison’s Birthday (1782)
Robert Morrison (1782-1834) was the first Protestant missionary to China, and it was through his work that China was opened up to the Christian message in the nineteenth century. Morrison was an evangelical Presbyterian who devoted himself to a monumental task of study and translation. A handful of people in China converted to Christianity and…
-
Today is James Ussher’s Birthday
Archbishop James Ussher, Bishop of Armagh, is remembered these days chiefly for his chronology: Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti (“Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world”), which he published in 1650. What was his chronology? The short version is that he added together all the begats…
-
Otter Kitty
By Phoebe Age Six. The young artist who produced this image has described it as either “a kitty who thinks she’s an otter” or “an otter who thinks she’s a kitty.” Well, which is it? Even if we allow for the ambiguity of pictorial representation, it can hardly be seen as both. Indeed, this seems…
-
Today is E. Stanley Jones’ Birthday
E. Stanley Jones was born on January 3, 1884. He was an important Methodist Missionary with a big vision for world evangelism. Already as a college study as Asbury College in central Kentucky, the hand of God was on Jones: he was one of four participants in a prayer meeting (in a men’s dorm during a…
-
Today is Thérèse of Lisieux’s Birthday
Today in 1873 Thérèse of Lisieux was born. Some Catholics call her The Little Flower, but DOCTOR Little Flower might be more appropriate. Born Marie-Francoise-Thérèse Martin as the ninth child of devout parents, she became a Carmelite nun at the unusually early age of 15. She only had about a decade of life as a…
-
Today is Zwingli’s Birthday
Today in 1484, Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli was born, about 40 days after Martin Luther. Zwingli was a well-trained scholar (Universities of Vienna and Basel) and had the early reputation of being the best Greek student north of the Alps. But he was essentially a man of action, and when he began his preaching ministry…
-
Scriptorium’s Greatest Hits 2008
Scriptorium Daily has been an active and successful web publication in 2008. We’ve added more bloggers to the team, and together we’ve posted with a regularity that almost justifies our name. Our hit counts, subscriptions, and e-mails suggest that lots of people are appreciating what we do here, which is nice, since so much of…