The Scriptorium Daily

Category: Blog

  • Love is a Noun

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    One of the many clichés of book titling is the “____ is a verb” trick. It’s supposed to grab your attention, be a little disorienting, and suggest that _____ is full of unexpected action and energy. For example, a quick search shows that “Life is a Verb,” “News is a Verb,” “Friendship is a Verb,”…

  • Cotton Mather, the Cistern of Nature, and Pressing After Piety

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    Fred Sanders
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    Cotton Mather, American Puritan, was born yesterday and died today. That is, he was born on February 12 in the year 1663, and died February 13 in the year 1728. Mather kept a voluminous diary which would be worth reading just for its historical value, since he was on the scene for so many important…

  • Lawrence of the Resurrection on Practicing the Presence

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    Fred Sanders
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    Today (February 12) is the day in 1691 that Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection died. He is remembered for the spiritual writings which have been published as The Practice of the Presence of God, and he is famous for describing how to commune intimately with God while working hard in the kitchen. He was born…

  • Ryrie The Communicator

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    Fred Sanders
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    The name Charles Caldwell Ryrie calls to mind a very conservative theologian who has specialized in dispensationalism, insisted on inerrancy, and gotten involved in theological dust-ups like the one between “lordship salvation” vs. “free grace.” One could easily get the image of hard-headed fundamentalist fighter. I’ve never met Ryrie, and don’t know anything about his…

  • Yourself and the Air Around You

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    Fred Sanders
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    Charles C. Ryrie has a hundred object lessons for teaching the young. No, really, a hundred. They’re all good for making doctrinal points clear to kids, and Ryrie tells you exactly what object to show the kids in each case: a chair, a comb, a sealed letter, a map, etc. But when he tries to…

  • Found Poem: Wrong Way — Right Way

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    Fred Sanders
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    Wrong Way — Right Way Air An Invitation A Paycheck Hell Sinners All The World What Death Is Rejecting Ignoring A Stopped Watch All-Seeing “Be Ye Ready” Heaven No Savior Substitute An Anchor My Glasses Dark Glasses A Grade Book A Love Letter Mosquito Bites The Shadow How To Eat Necessary Parts Safe Keeping Clean…

  • Scott Bessenecker on Leadership

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    Greg Peters
    in

    I just finished reading Scott Bessenecker’s new book How to Inherit the Earth: Submitting Ourselves to a Servant Savior (InterVarsity Press, 2009). Overall it was a good book, easy to read and understand. According to Bessenecker, most leaders in today’s church have bought into the “MONOPOLY” mindset of leadership. Simply put that means most leaders…

  • “We’re on a mission from God.”

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    Matt Jenson
    in

    In the 1980 movie The Blues Brothers, Dan Akroyd deadpans: “We’re on a mission from God.” He and his partner are in the process of putting their band back together and are enlisting an old bandmate, and Akroyd’s character flatly insists that the divine origin of their project is sufficient warrant for the man to…

  • What are We Preparing For? (Lessons from Justin Key)

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    Fred Sanders
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    Here at the beginning of a new academic semester, all the students and professors are full of big plans. We’re going to cover so much material, learn so many new skills, and develop so many relationships. We’ve got a long semester ahead of us, and since it’s a Spring semester, there’s a big graduation at…

  • Three Reasons to Write Out Your Ideas Now

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    Fred Sanders
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    Three authors who knew a lot more when they were older, but were glad they had written their books when they were younger: John Wesley: “Nay, I know not that I can write a better on The Circumcision of the Heart than I did five and forty years ago.” C. H. Dodd in 1958: “I have…

  • Plato for Pleasure

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    Fred Sanders
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    Hey, everybody, Plato is fun! Everybody ought to read him! Yay Plato! That, at least, is the argument of Adam Fox in his 1945 book Plato for Pleasure (revised edtion 1962). “The works of Plato have generally been in the hands of philosophers and scholars when they ought to have been in the hands of…

  • Menand: Uncommonly Successful in Keeping the Felicities of Prose

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    Fred Sanders
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    I just finished a very fast read-through (with permission to skip some sections) of Louis Menand’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2001 book The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America. It’s a 500-page book about one school of American philosophy. I picked it up used and have had it on the shelf for a few years,…