The Scriptorium Daily

Category: Blog

  • Cuneiform tablets, big fish and God’s Word

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    Greg Peters
    in

    I ran across an article today from the on-line edition of the London Times from July 11 entitled “Museum’s tablet lends new weight to Biblical truth.” For obvious reasons, this article caught my attention so I began to read. The verdict is this: from the 100,000 or so cuneiform tablets located in the British Library,…

  • Emergent Allergies: Boundaries

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    Matt Jenson
    in ,

    The problem with boundaries is that they serve too often to keep people out, rather than to keep people in. Insider/outsider, or ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ language too often threatens to undermine a gospel which is about an ever-expanding ‘us’ group. Furthermore, it tends to seduce us into thinking that ‘they’ are the problem, at which…

  • The End of Integration?

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    Matt Jenson
    in ,

    In a recent New York Times op-ed piece, David Brooks laments the ‘end of integration’. (Read the whole piece here.) Nothing is sadder than the waning dream of integration… Expecting integration, Americans find themselves confronting polarization and fragmentation. Amid all the problems that have made Americans sour and pessimistic, this is the deepest… But it…

  • How to Look at Art

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    Visiting an art museum can be a stifling experience. No matter how friendly the staff or how hospitable the building itself may be, most of us suffer from an almost palpable feeling of intimidation in a museum. Dozens of rooms with hundreds of pictures, all hung exactly at eye level and perfectly lit. You are…

  • Ecumenical Honesty, Finally!

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    Greg Peters
    in

    On July 10, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released a document entitled “Responses to some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church.” You may have heard about it already even if you have not read the document itself. Recalling and reaffirming the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching since, at…

  • Emergent Allergies: Systems

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    Matt Jenson
    in ,

    As part of an ongoing series of posts on emerging churches, I’m going to look at a few emergent allergies — things that get emerging churches itching and scratching and threaten to leave an embarrassing rash. As I noted in a previous post, the early days of deconstruction are receding from view as these churches…

  • Remembering Benedict of Nursia

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    Greg Peters
    in

    Today is the feast of Benedict of Nursia. Details of Benedict’s life come primarily from the second book of the Dialogues of Gregory the Great and from Benedict’s own Rule for Monks. Born in 480 in Nursia, just outside of Rome, Benedict was educated in Rome before adopting a life of asceticism. He spent three…

  • Interpreting Texts on Interpretation

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    Greg Peters
    in

    Does God withhold truth from believers? Now, I am not talking about the areas of physics, science, medicine, etc. Rather, my question is spiritual in nature: are there things about God and his creation that I cannot know while living on earth? Well, many Christians have already formed a response and, I am guessing, many…

  • Birthdays and Eternal Life

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    Greg Peters
    in

    That we all have to age and grow older is a fact of life, especially in this post-Edenic world. My own birthdays do not cause me much consternation, probably because I do little to acknowledge my own birthday. Sure, I will accept gifts from family and friends (who wouldn’t?) and I will even indulge by…

  • Biola’s Founders

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    The Summer ’07 issue of Biola Connections is out, and it includes an article I wrote about the founders of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. Biola’s origins could not be more the stuff of legend if we had been founded by John Henry, Paul Bunyan and a blue ox named Babe. With giant steps,…

  • (Dis)continuity in Creation and Redemption

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    Matt Jenson
    in

    Christian theology must attend to both continuity and discontinuity when speaking of creation and redemption… So much of theology comes down to strategy. That is, how does the gospel need to make its way into our lives and churches here and now? Liberal Protestant theology could use a good dose of the discontinuity. A little…

  • Airport Haiku

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    Here’s some cheap pseudo-haiku composed in flight this week. Accompanying it is a drawing by Freddy Age Six of a green airplane flying from left to right, with a propeller spinning and a happy pilot head sticking out. I’m leaving on a jet plane. Don’t know when be back. Oh babe. Oh. I hate to…