What good is a statue nobody can see? In a courtyard in Cambridge, England (just beside the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences) is a pair of iron footprints. Over the last few summers, I’ve seen these footprints dozens of times. I’ve wondered what they were pointing toward or away from, I’ve joked with my kids about them, I’ve stood toe to toe with them, I’ve noticed how different they look in dry and rainy weather. They don’t really make much... Read more
Samuel Johnson is one of the acknowledged masters of English prose, a fixed star of style. As you might expect from the author of a dictionary, Johnson was master of a vast vocabulary, concatenating his words into characteristically long sentences. Those sentences! They are complex periodic constructions, piled high, triple-knotted, exquisitely balanced, and crafted to lead the reader in paths of sagacity. The Johnsonian style is not for everybody, but it is a perfect achievement in its own right. You may... Read more
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 Trinity was a liability, a burden to be borne patiently, this is the book that will change your perspective. Michael Reeves’s Delighting in the Trinity presents... Read more
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 Biola would be able to find enough material to fill its pages year after year. The answer is yes: spiritual formation continues to be a... Read more
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 his recent How I Love Your Torah, O Lord! Studies in the Book of Deuteronomy (Cascade, 2011). Here is how he puts it: “Given the ubiquitous... Read more
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 was. But Ralph’s work was of a special kind: his theological projects were so solid, so judiciously elaborated, and so fruitful, that I think he... Read more
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 under socratic guidance from two Biola profs, and explore the city. Our tag-line for the class is “Great Books in a Great Place.” The annual... Read more
Wheatstone’s summer conference just ended. We had a week of great seminars, workshops, cultural events, and (maybe most importantly) small group discussions. It’s incredible to walk around a conference campus and see clusters of students or educators discussing hard ideas with a Wheatstone mentor. Intent faces. Wild hand gestures. “But what does it mean to be noble?” By the end of the week Wheatstone mentors are completely exhausted, but even at our staff party–with interns and managers and mentors sprawled asleep... Read more
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 that has eluded me to this point. Luther called for a daily return to our baptism. Good theology, it seems to me, is a daily... Read more
Another school year has come and gone and summer is now in full swing. In fact, I write this before I head home to swim with my two sons. Nothing is better in the summer for a university professor than sleeping in, doing some reading and writing and going for a late afternoon swim with the family and an evening bike ride. This gentle California weather makes it even more enjoyable! Yet, summers are also a difficult time for a... Read more
The Scriptorium
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In