The Scriptorium Daily

Category: Theology

  • Delighting in the Good (Triune) God

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    Fred Sanders
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    There’s a nice little book on the Trinity coming out soon, and I highly recommend it as a zippy intro to my favorite subject. The book is Delighting in the Trinity, by Michael Reeves, and here’s what I already said about it as a back-cover blurb: If you have ever felt that the doctrine of…

  • The Formative Reading of Scripture

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    Fred Sanders
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    The Journal of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care is a twice-yearly journal from Biola’s Institute for Spiritual Formation. Now in its fourth year of publication, it has a nice track record of publishing interesting, peer-reviewed articles. When the journal was launched, some observers wondered if a journal  headquartered at a distinctively Protestant evangelical place like…

  • Loving God, and Saying So in the Bible

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    Fred Sanders
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    When you love God, it seems altogether natural to say so: to God (“I love you, Lord”) and to others (“I love the Lord”). But OT scholar Daniel Block claims that it’s just not an Old Testament thing to do. Block has made this claim in a few places. I just saw it again in…

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

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    Fred Sanders
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    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
    in ,

    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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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
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    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…

  • Prayer for the Class of 2012

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    Fred Sanders
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    (For Torrey graduation, May 25, 2012) Father God, we bring these seniors, this class of 2012, to you today. We lift them up before you, and call their names in your presence, and call on your name in their presence. Because this is the moment of the handoff. We are passing them on to you.…

  • The Ascension: Christ’s Kind Absence

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    Peter David Gross
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    Preached at Redeemer Church on May 17, 2012. See a previous Ascension sermon here. John 16:7 – Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to…