The Scriptorium Daily

Category: Theology

  • Deep Calleth to Deep

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    Salvation, according to the Bible, comes from God’s self-giving. That’s pretty high-falutin’ theologizing, even if you leave the Trinitarian part out of it. But it’s also immediately relevant to our lives. There is an evangelical spirituality which corresponds to the deeply personal nature of God’s self-giving. It is a spirituality that focuses relentlessly on God…

  • An Olympian Standard of Bible Study

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    Fred Sanders
    in , ,

    In the preface to Bernard Knox’s book Oedipus at Thebes: Sophocles’ Tragic Hero and His Time, he tells this story: As an undergraduate at Cambridge I had been awestruck by a statement of Walter Headlam, a brilliant Cambridge scholar whose career was cut short by his early death at the age of forty-eight in 1908.…

  • The Deep Things of God: The Gospel

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    Let’s go inside of the place Paul takes us in First Corinthians 2: secret wisdom only available through a Spirit who searches the deep things of God; a knowledge of God’s ways that is only possible if you have the mind of the Messiah. How far in to the deep things of God does this…

  • The New Covenant: A Father, His Son, and Their Spirit

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    The gospel is good news because it is saving. Judgment day didn’t have to be good news, it could be very bad news for you. But it’s good because it brings three important things. Here’s a little Trinitarian sub-outline of the gospel: A. It brings God as our Father. Not just God as the creator,…

  • Adam and Eve, “Outside” by Mark Jarman

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    Fred Sanders
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    I don’t read very much contemporary poetry; I admit that I like my poets dead and classic. But one poet I do try to keep up with is Mark Jarman, who teaches at Vanderbilt and is somehow associated with a movement called the New Formalism. I don’t know what’s New or Formal about it, or…

  • The New Testament: Final Answers to Rhetorical Questions

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    Fred Sanders
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    One of the most arresting things the New Testament does is give real answers to what the Old Testament had put forth as rhetorical questions. Have you ever noticed this? Rhetorical questions, which are not meant to be answered, are put in question form in order to make a point. Proverbs 30 is a good…

  • What’s New?

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    At the beginning of January I got to preach at Grace Fellowship Church in Costa Mesa, CA. The sermon was on First Corinthians 2 and entitled “The Deep Things of God.” For the next few days, I’ll be posting sections of the sermon text as individual meditations. Today’s post is the silly part. I’ve always…

  • Martin Luther King, Jr: One Great Liberal Theologian

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    Fred Sanders
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    John Piper has the right idea about Martin Luther King Day: Don’t Waste It. In a timely memo, Piper exhorted all pastors and teachers who read his blog to “take note of the day and speak a word of exhortation to your people concerning their hearts in matters of race and ethnicity. … None of…

  • Catholicity, Race and Sunday Morning

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    Matt Jenson
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    For the last 1600 years, Christians have confessed belief in the ‘one holy catholic and apostolic church’. The ‘catholic’ bit of that confession makes many Protestants fidgety, but it need not. Its etymology renders it simply ‘according to the whole’. Catholicity gets at the universal character of the church, and it does so by two…

  • Dallas Willard Carries a Big Stick

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    Paul Spears
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    We have all heard the famous quote by President Teddy Roosevelt, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Roosevelt was talking about his foreign policy when he made that famous quote. If you have ever heard Dallas Willard speak you have experienced the academic version of that saying. He speaks in modest tones, but his…

  • Setting Goals for the New Year

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    Scriptorium Admin
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    It’s the time of year when we set New Year’s resolutions. However, before you do, I offer you something to ponder. Suppose I invited you over to play a game of Monopoly. When you arrive I announce that the game is going to be a bit different. Before us is the Monopoly board, a set…

  • Paul AND Timothy (commentary by Richard Sibbes)

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    Puritan Richard Sibbes (1577-1635) wrote a commentary on the first chapter of Second Corinthians. I would call it an expansive or leisurely commentary, running to over 500 pages on 23 verses of Scripture. At that rate, Sibbes has to squeeze some meaning out of little words like “and” in the salutation “Paul and Timothy.” –Amazingly,…