The Scriptorium Daily

Category: Theology

  • King David’s Personality

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    I figure King David was an ENFP. If David had taken the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator, he would have scored as an extrovert who thrives on contact with others, an intuitive person who sees meanings in everything, a heart-person who makes decisions based on feelings, and the kind of person who doesn’t have to resolve…

  • Kit Smart: Crazy Praise

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    Fred Sanders
    in ,

    Christoper Smart (1722–71) , known to companions as Kit, was a learned poet who wrote plenty of poems which are mostly unreadable now by anybody outside the guild of English literature studies: Ode to the Earl of Northumberland, To Ethelinda, and Lines After Horace —that sort of thing. He edited a magazine and got into…

  • Offering Ourselves to God

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    Greg Peters
    in

    I write this as I am on my way home from two weeks of teaching at Nashotah House Theological Seminary in Wisconsin. It was a good two weeks and I am grateful to the hard-working, thoughtful students who represent all that is good about the Episcopal Church in the United States. I was teaching a…

  • Sin Happens

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    Matt Jenson
    in ,

    I’ve just reviewed Alan Jacobs’ new book Original Sin: A Cultural History for Books & Culture. I’d like to recommend both to you. Jacobs writes beautiful, thoughtful books. (I’m finishing his other new book, on the nature of Christian testimony, now.) And if you haven’t looked at Books & Culture, think Christianity Today meets the…

  • Wedding Sermon: What God has Joined Together

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    For Mark Makin and Carri Javier, July 18, 2008 Part I: A Thing Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here today because we want to witness the creation of a new thing. This thing is a new family, this new household consisting of Mark and Carri, this Makin family, this couple, this one new reality,…

  • Oscillating, Not Vacillating: Simeon at Both Extremes

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    Charles Simeon knew the secret of staying centered on the Gospel even when the centrifugal forces of controversy conspired to knock him off balance. His approach was classically described by HCG Moule in his Simeon biography (starting around page 96). Simeon’s main goal in all his preaching was to emphasize what God wanted emphasized, and…

  • Charles Simeon of Cambridge

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    The history of the church is filled with great pastors and teachers. Even if you skip over the church fathers, the medievals, and the reformers, confining yourself to recent times–say these past two and a half centuries– there are more than enough great theologians and devotional writers to keep you busy, well-fed, informed, and inspired.…

  • Be In These Things: I Timothy 4:15

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    “Let no one despise you for your youth,” Paul told Timothy in the letter we know as First Timothy. “But set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” Paul encouraged Timothy to devote himself to the public reading of scripture, to exhorting, and to teaching, not neglecting his…

  • Christian Ideas, Pagan Language

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    Fred Sanders
    in ,

    In the sixteenth century, Desiderius Erasmus found himself under intellectual attack from all sides. He probably deserved most of those attacks: he constantly criticized the medieval church, but when a real Reformation broke out, he decided he didn’t really mean it, or at least that he didn’t mean for anything to happen as a result…

  • Beautiful Isle of Somewhere

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    Fred Sanders
    in ,

    Do you know the hymn, “Beautiful Isle of Somewhere?” Written by Jes­sie B. Pounds in 1897, it was apparently a very popular hymn for funeral services in the early twentieth century. It was sung at President William McKinley’s funeral, for instance. Google it along with words like “funeral” or “burial,” and you’ll find plenty of…

  • Tangled Up in Blue

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    Matt Jenson
    in , ,

    An hour ago I unloaded my things after a long drive down the 5, back from three weeks in Berkeley with two other faculty members, their families and thirty-some students. Every year, a crew of Torrey students and faculty live in Utopia, also known as the Westminster House in Berkeley. Mornings are for classes, afternoons…

  • Prayer for the Class of 2008

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    Fred Sanders
    in ,

    Father in heaven, We bring these graduating seniors of the Torrey Honors Institute before you today with thankfulness, joy, and relief. We present them to you with their Torrey educations completed. And in this sweet moment of successful accomplishment, we admit to you that we do not completely understand the meaning of what we have…