The Scriptorium Daily

Category: Blog

  • "The Divine Grip:" Ralph Del Colle (1954-2012)

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    Theologian Ralph Del Colle has passed away this week from cancer. When an accomplished thinker of his stature dies before age sixty, it is almost inevitable that he will have left some promising projects uncompleted. I think Ralph was working on a christology book, for instance, though I don’t know how far along the manuscript…

  • Torrey Cambridge 2012

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    Fred Sanders
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    Every July, a group of students from Biola’s Torrey Honors Institute goes to Cambridge, England, for an intensive three-week class. If you know the Torrey program, you can imagine what it would be like to experience it in an environment as rich and stimulating as Cambridge. Students read classic texts from various disciplines, discuss them…

  • How to Discuss: Have Faith, Have Hope, Have Love.

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    Peter David Gross
    in

    Wheatstone’s summer conference just ended. We had a week of great seminars, workshops, cultural events, and (maybe most importantly) small group discussions. It’s incredible to walk around a conference campus and see clusters of students or educators discussing hard ideas with a Wheatstone mentor. Intent faces. Wild hand gestures. “But what does it mean to be…

  • Becoming a Christian

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    Matt Jenson
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    Little of the growth in my life comes from learning something new. Instead, it comes from learning—really learning—something old. Or it comes from getting inside something I’ve known about for a long time. It comes from re-examining, from walking over the territory yet again, hoping that a fresh look will yield a sense of things…

  • The Need to Work

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    Greg Peters
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    Another school year has come and gone and summer is now in full swing. In fact, I write this before I head home to swim with my two sons. Nothing is better in the summer for a university professor than sleeping in, doing some reading and writing and going for a late afternoon swim with…

  • Summertime in England: It Ain't Why (It Just Is)

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    Probably just because I’m spending the summertime in England, I’ve been listening to Van Morrison’s song by that name lately. This is not the song I’d send somebody to if they wanted to understand what some people find so fascinating about Van Morrison; there are too many problems with it. But if it catches you,…

  • Dr. Johnson's Cat

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    Fred Sanders
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    Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the literary giant behind Rasselas and the first truly great English dictionary, had a cat. He actually had several cats over the course of his life, actually, but the only one we have information about is a black cat named Hodge. Johnson’s biographer, Boswell, hated cats, but grudgingly reported on Johnson’s fondness…

  • Readings on the Trinity (Class Outline)

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    Fred Sanders
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    This is the book list, with short annotations, for a class I teach on the Trinity from time to time here at Biola. There’s more to a class than just the book list, of course: our classroom work is all Socratic discussion, and during the semester we spend some time on supplementary topics like the…

  • A Noble Risk: The Making of a Wheatstone Conference Theme

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    Peter David Gross
    in , ,

    Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.  1 Peter 4:19 No sensible man would insist that these things are as I have described them, but I think it is fitting for a man to risk…

  • The Trinity: Yes, A Doctrine About God

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    Fred Sanders
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      Today was Trinity Sunday, as observed by churches who follow the western liturgical calendar. There wasn’t always a Trinity Sunday, and even when (well into the middle ages) it was proposed, some popes argued against it on the grounds that (a) feast days are supposed to commemorate events, not doctrines, and (b) every Sunday…

  • When You Hear "Mystery"

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    Fred Sanders
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    When you hear the word “mystery” in a sermon or in the Bible, what do you do? What do you expect to happen next? In a sermon on 1 Timothy 3:16 (“great is the mystery of Godliness”), John Calvin said that we should have two responses: When we hear this word, mystery, let us remember two…

  • Sanctification: Two Meanings

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    First you’re justified, then you become sanctified, and finally you’ll be glorified. To make progress as a disciple is to grow in sanctification. Right? Yes, this is how we talk. And when we talk this way, we know what we’re talking about. The word “sanctification” points to a process of development, a growing “in the…