Christology Ancient & Modern: The Book!

October 31, 2013 By Fred Sanders

Christology Ancient & Modern: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics is the first volume in a series of books that will make the proceedings of the annual Los Angeles Theology Conference available to a wider audience. Only a lucky few hundred people were at the annual conference in January 2013, but this 200-page paperback from Zondervan collects all of the plenary papers and more than half of the parallel-session papers. Oliver Crisp and I are the series editors, and together with the... Read more

The Glory of God

October 28, 2013 By janelleaijian

If God’s glory falls in the middle of the cosmos, and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound? This was the question I used this week to begin discussions on Jonathan Edward’s The End for Which God Created the World. Scripture is full of discussions of God’s glory. It is God’s glory that motivates his action to redeem and save (Is 48:11), as well as to punish and exile (Ez 28:22). It is the glory of... Read more

Dig Here Said the Angel

October 18, 2013 By Fred Sanders

“I sell records worldwide now that I’ve died,” boasts the singer in one of the tracks on the new Daniel Amos album, Dig Here Said the Angel. The character is a musician, obviously, but postmortem, and somehow (As a ghost? In a dream?) he’s assuring his still-living spouse that everything’s great for him since his death: I lost my stiff, stiff neck and my hard, hard heart, My self-respect is off the charts, Just hanging out here on the other... Read more

Deepening Your Faith in the Trinity (Harvest Christian Fellowship)

October 16, 2013 By Fred Sanders

Here’s video of a talk I gave on the Trinity last week (Sunday Oct. 6) at Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside. It’s part of their educational series called “Deepening Your Faith,” in which I’m teaching on the Trinity (last week) and christology (next week). In the series, they’re paying special attention to heresies, and are using Justo & Catherine Gunsalus Gonzales’ little book, Heresy for Armchair Theologians. So there’s a little talk about the definition of heresies at the beginning,... Read more

They Must Have Trusted: Hebrews 11

October 15, 2013 By Fred Sanders

Here is the video, and below is the script, of a sermon I preached at my home church, Grace Evangelical Free Church in La Mirada, yesterday (Sun. Oct 13, 2014). I also got to preach a 30-minute version of it for chapel tonight at Los Angeles Bible Training School. They Must Have Trusted: Hebrews 11 Grace EVFree Oct 14, 2013 & LABTS Oct 15, 2013 Brothers and sisters, Hebrews is a great book. It’s not just a nice... Read more

What Abel, Though Dead, Still Speaks

October 14, 2013 By Fred Sanders

In Charles Simeon’s sermon on Hebrews 11:4, “Abel’s Offering Instructive to Us,” he explores the meaning of Abel’s sacrifice: compared to Cain’s, it was an admission of guilt and a confession of the need for salvation. The offering of Cain could have been given in Eden before the fall, but the death of a firstborn shows an awareness of the consequences of sin. Charles Simeon’s preaching always showed his genius for getting to the heart of the gospel from any... Read more

Iconography of Cain and Abel

October 12, 2013 By Fred Sanders

I can’t take the time to give proper commentary on these images, but I just rooted around on the web for pictures of the sacrifices of Cain and Abel, because I wanted to see how various artists interpreted the offerings. The story in Genesis is so sparely narrated that it tends to call forth vigorous interpretive activity, much imaginative filling in of details, and intuitive leaps of association. Here are five that stood out. A nice, standard, coloring-page picture from... Read more

We’re Not Lost by The Show Ponies

October 9, 2013 By janelleaijian

Album Review by Janelle and Phillip Aijian “We’re not lost, we just don’t know where to go.” The lyric from the Show Ponies’ sophomore effort invokes not only the album title, but also one of its major themes: humor and humility in the midst of an uncertain journey. But rather than “the hero’s journey,” pitting a misunderstood artist against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, each song offers a variation on a duet; a musical reminder that each journey is defined just... Read more

Trinitarian Confidence in Evangelism

October 4, 2013 By Fred Sanders

I love this excerpt about how the Trinity is the basis of confidence for Christians taking up the task of evangelism, which I quote here from an evangelistic training manual (see bottom of this post for details). If you are telling people the gospel, you need this kind of encouragement: God is Our Confidence Where does our confidence come from? How can we go out boldly and share Christ with confidence? God not only saves us, God IS our salvation.... Read more

Wesley on the Christian Life: The Heart Renewed in Love

September 30, 2013 By Fred Sanders

I forgot to make an actual, official announcement here at Scriptorium of the late-summer publication of my book Wesley on the Christian Life: The Heart Renewed in Love. It’s the latest entry in Crossway’s fast-growing Theologians on the Christian Life series, and it comes recommended by Wesleyan heroes like Robert Coleman and Timothy Tennent, as well as Reformed stalwarts like Carl Trueman and Michael Horton. So here’s the official announcement and prompt: buy my book! The cover features a dreamy portrait... Read more