The Scriptorium Daily

Category: Blog

  • Israel and Advent

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    Matt Jenson
    in

    Yesterday Joe and I were driving to Sports Authority in Cerritos. In the middle of catching one another up on our lives, he took a conversational detour to ask what I thought about Israel. It’s partly a political question, partly a spiritual one; it concerns at once Scripture, revelation, Jesus, the church and, of course,…

  • R.W. Dale on the Trinity

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    Fred Sanders
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    Today (December 1) is the birthday of R. W. Dale (1829 – 1895), a British Congregationalist pastor and writer. Dale is best remembered for his conservatizing essay on the atonement, and for his commitment to social work in applying what he called “the civic gospel” to Birmingham, England, which needed it. Dale also wrote a…

  • Bringing One Another Along – A Wedding Homily for Jane and Alex Elmore

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    Greg Peters
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    This wedding homily was delivered at St. Anne’s Anglican Church in Oceanside, CA on June 26, 2009. Jane and Alex were students of mine in the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University and I had the privilege of performing, along with Jane’s father, their wedding this summer. A beautiful day with a wonderful couple. Jane…

  • The Christian Religion

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    Fred Sanders
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    Last week I spoke at the annual Religious Diversity Forum at the University of California at Irvine. Most of my time there was spent in open discussion with a small group of people, including a rabbi and a nice Muslim woman who was fascinated by the idea of Baptist foot-washing services. But here are my…

  • Faculty Wise Words

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    Greg Peters
    in

    I wrote the following last month for Biola University’s weekly newspaper The Chimes. Perhaps it has something to say to readers of Scriptorium as well: Anyone who knows me knows that I like monks. Actually, I really like monks. I know a few monks (and nuns) personally and I like them as people but that’s…

  • Martin Bucer, Some Kind of Protestant

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    Fred Sanders
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    Today (November 11) is the birthday of Martin Bucer (1491-1551). An important Reformer, he did his work in a no-man’s land between what would become the stable confessions and denominations of later decades. This is one of the reasons he is not frequently remembered. Though he influenced the Lutherans, the Reformed, and the Anglicans, he…

  • Claude Welch, 1922-2009

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    Claude Welch, eminent historian of nineteenth-century theology, died on November 6. Claude was an institutional pillar of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, where I got my PhD. In their obituary, the GTU lists his terms of service to the school. He was Dean and President from 1971 to 1982, and Dean from 1982 to…

  • Names for the Nameless

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    Fred Sanders
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    There is a delightfully quirky entry by Bruce Metzger in the Oxford Companion to the Bible, entitled “Names for the Nameless.” (pp. 546-548) It is a report on characters in the Bible whose names are not provided. Metzger notes that “through the ages, readers of the Bible have felt the need to identify some of…

  • How the Trinity Freed the Slaves (Happy Birthday Granville Sharp)

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    Fred Sanders
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    Today (November 10) is the birthday of Granville Sharp (1735-1813). Sharp is remembered for two major accomplishments. First, you will find his name in every history of the abolition of the slave trade. His involvement began when he met a man named Jonathan Strong, a slave from Barbados who had been beaten so badly that…

  • “Accomplished and Applied” in the Apostles’ Creed

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    The Apostles’ Creed has three articles, one for each person of the Trinity. The first article, on God the Father Almighty, is very short. He created heaven and earth. Much more could be said, but it isn’t said. The second article is the longest, because it tells the story of Jesus: conceived by the Spirit,…

  • Erasmus, Born to Bring Back Literature

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    Fred Sanders
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    Today (October 27) is the birthday of Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, known simply as Erasmus, famous in his own time as Mr. Renaissance. He was “born to bring back literature,” his contemporaries said of him: ad restituendas literas natus. The Renaissance was a defining event in Western intellectual history, precisely because it looked back into antiquity…

  • Lewis Bayly and the Practice of Trinitarian Piety

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    Fred Sanders
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    We don’t know when Lewis Bayly was born, but he died on this day (October 26) in 1631. Who was Lewis Bayly? It’s a little sad that almost nobody knows anymore. Bayly is an unjustly forgotten spiritual treasure. He was the author of a book called The Practice of Piety, one of the best-selling and…