Christian Carnival CCLXXXI

Light Along the Journey: Dr. John uses a "slightly atypical example" to teach some sound theology - What Weekend at Bernie's Taught Me About Christianity.

So, what exactly is this teaching me about Christianity?

Simply this: Bernie has a lot in common with most people, including many people that attend a church each Sunday. They may dress like a Christian, talk like a Christian, hang out with Christians, and do “Christiany” things like tithe and serve the church. They may convince a lot of people that they are a Christian, maybe even themselves.

Yea, everything seems to be smooth sailing, except for one little detail: they’re dead.

dokeo kago grapho soi kratistos Theophilos: Richard H. Anderson has an interesting post at The Mystery of Jesus Revealed. Apparently the early Jewish historian Josephus took great pains to make sure folks knew exactly which Jesus he was talking about.

For His Glory: Been asking yourself lately "where's God when I need him?" Check out Jaime's post titled 'Omnipresence.' Just love this bit from Acts 17 she clips in near the bottom:

The God who made the world and everything in it, this Master of sky and land, doesn't live in custom-made shrines or need the human race to run errands for him, as if he couldn't take care of himself. He makes the creatures; the creatures don't make him. Starting from scratch, he made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living so we could seek after God, and not just grope around in the dark but actually find him. He doesn't play hide-and-seek with us. He's not remote; he's near. We LIVE and MOVE in him, can't get away from him!

I can't tell for sure if posts like Accelerated College Degrees Online are BlogCarnival spam or not. But hey - it could be helpful to somebody looking for a Bible college degree.

Free Money Finance: The Price of Faith, Being Muslim has some things I didn't know about how Muslims "tithe" and abide by shari'a financial law. Not that I'd compare evangelicals to Muslims on giving, or anything, because my hunch is we'd, um, come in second. :-(

Mark Tenniswood plops on the couch, catches a bit of Antiques Roadshow (dude - what r u doing watching PBS?), and then rocks our sox with brokenness, posted over at until we're home...

One woman said to me the other day, “I’m not good enough to go to church.” But that’s not the way it is. Scripture says it’s like if God were at that antique show that day he’d pass by all of those perfect, mint condition jars to find the one that was chipped, and worn, and rather ugly. And then God puts his most precious treasure into it. It says God puts his treasure into people who are like simple clay jars.

Read the whole thing. I'm glad you and Dr. John are able to redeem the media a little...

CM Buzz: Keith Tusing with some advice on Event Planning for the “Big Event”.

A “Big Event” can help expose your ministry to a wider audience and at the same time communicate a commitment to excellence. How your ministry overall will be perceived is often determined by large scale events. Use this to your advantage by making sure you take the steps that lead to success. 

who am i? Barry Wallace asks "How can we avoid negating one truth with another?" Randy Alcorn has an answer in the style of Charles Spurgeon: "Embrace biblical paradox."

We have to walk a fine line.  We should never abandon logic and reason.  We should always think hard about the paradoxes found in Scripture, and we should never stop asking hard questions about them.  At the same time, we need to heed the warnings of Spurgeon and Alcorn and others, and beware of making a god out of logical consistency.  Comprehendible gods are nothing more than intellectually sophisticated idols. 

axel g hits a home run with a post called Consumed By Collective Fear. His main topic is how the banking industry is fueled by fear. I think a lot of the environmental movement (including the Christian variety) is unecessarily based on fear too. He writes:

One thing's for sure, everything that blooms will wither away. The same holds true for human life. Everyone that's born will die, that's the law of nature. The truth is that we're scared of death and we'd rather not talk about it.

Instead, we do everything we can to suppress our fears. The nature of life is uncertainty and ongoing change but we don't accept that, the same way we resist death.

These are the seeds of collective fear where everyone ultimately wants protection from life itself. 

IN HIM WE LIVE AND MOVE AND HAVE OUR BEING: NCSue penned a very moving account of a woman who learned to read the King James Bible without knowing the letters. I won't give it away - go read this one! 

Bible Study Exposition Online: Bible SEO served up part of an eight-part series on the Beatitudes: Blessed are Poor in Spirit - 8 Part Series based on Matthew 5:3-12. Paradoxes again? Sounds like more Spurgeon. Heh!

Beatitudes are the great contrast to the worldly motion of ‘blessedness’ and ‘happiness’. It is no wonder that it does not make sense and almost seems contradiction to the carnal mind.  “For the message about the cross is nonsense to those who are being destroyed, but it is God’s power to us who are being saved.” (1st Cor 1:18)

Money in the Bible | Christian Personal Finance Blog: ChristianPF asks is your mortgage hindering you from fulfilling God’s call?

Could it be that missionaries are few in number partially because our debt makes answering a call to missions difficult? Mortgages, credit card payments, even long-term cell phone contracts - all of these financial obligations can be taken on for good reasons, but they tend to make life more complicated.   Simply going is not easy.

ReturningKing.com: Andriel presents Unsound Theories of Atonement

The child can understand that “Jesus died for my sins,” yet the theologian may spend years trying to fully understand how exactly the provision of Christ was applied to the account of the sinner.

Andriel unpacks a nummber of different ways theologians have approached it. Good stuff.

Meanwhile, Rodney Olsen has a post called Get naked for success over at The Journey - Life : Faith : Family:

An English actress has suggested that young actresses need to get naked to get ahead in the business. What should our response be?"

Tell them Spurgeon would never be caught naked. LOL!

School Daze!!! DetentionSlip.org: Hall monitor has some current events for us - Teacher accused of displaying Bible sues district. He doesn't expect that the guy will get his million bucks. Speaking of school, Keith Tusing asks Is VBS Dead? or Just Not Worth the Trouble? Shannon Christman asks does VBS = "Very Big Show"?

A Beautiful Life: A two-fer from Krisdyn, Bring the Spark Back - How to Save Your Marriage and How to Help the Grieving. Lots of wisdom from this young woman. Drop by and say howdy.

Parableman: Brother Jeremy Pierce has some moral questions about Late-Term Abortions. From his thoughts in the comments:

Nevertheless, my point very clearly wasn't that late-term abortions are all morally wrong because of the cases I listed where most people would oppose them. My point is that we can't talk about late-term abortions as if they're all the same thing, when there are moral distinctions that apply to different cases of late-term abortion. 

Old Testament Ecology: Justin Allison serves up Noah's Flood and Ecology. "The story of Noah has ecological implications for Christians." You knew I'd like this one!

The story of Noah and the Flood yields some good observations about humanity’s current predicament. When reading this story as someone who is interested in ecology, I notice the treatment of the environment or creation, and it’s inclusion in God’s covenant.

Shameless plug: Justin's bookmarked on my Blogroll, along with a bunch of other Christian ecology blogs and sites...

Boston Bible Geeks: Brian Marchionni offers some Sympathy for the Agnostic, as he explores some possible roots and deficiencies in agnosticism.

So many truth claims, such passion behind the arguments, so many “studies” that “show” said argument to be correct, so many testimonials, so little time, know-how, and expertise to sort it out.  What we are able to sort out are some superficial generalizations upon which everybody agrees:  “Don’t spend what you don’t have,” “Exercise and avoid fast food,” “Love your kids and be a vital part of their lives,” etc.  At the limit, we find an expert or two with whom we agree, providing us with a permission slip for our actions:  Spanking is wrong; Dr. Spock says so.

Is religion any different?  “Just believe in something,”  “Don’t kill anybody,” “Be tolerant of other beliefs.”  There can’t be just one way to Heaven; Oprah says so.  Where does that leave us?  I sympathize with the honest agnostic relativist, but are there some differences?  If agnosticism and/or relativism “works” in other areas of life, is it fair to say it “works” for religion?

Oprah certainly hasn't helped any.

The Veil Away: Robert Minto turns things up with Repentance & Hope: The Significance of Mankind

I do not minimize for a moment the depth and breadth of the human struggle for truth and meaning in our world.  I pray regularly that God would break my heart for those who are captive to that struggle, and do not yet know the freedom available to them in Christ.  Still, we must note that the rejection of Christianity in favor of agnosticism (or any other world view), is not a matter of knowledge alone.  In actuality, it is resisting the work of the Holy Spirit (c.f., Jn. 15:26; 16:8-11), for which we will have no good excuse.

Participatory Bible Study Blog: Henry Neufeld goes meddling again with a post called Choosing Bible Reading:

A recent study showed that we choose reading to back up our prejudices. Might it be that we choose Bible passages in the same way?

Crossroads: Where Faith and Inquiry Meet: Diane R suggests Two Areas in the Church Greatly Needs to Improve. No, I'm not going to give those away either. But it's only a quick click to pop over to her blog and find out what they are...

Thoughts and Confessions of a Girl Who Loves Jesus: Michelle digs into Philippians 1:8 and some real life:

He was the anesthesiologist in my room today. As we were taking the last patient to the room, he asked me why I had times tattooed on my neck. I told him they are not times, they are scriptures from the Bible. He said, “Really? What does 6:16 say?” I then told him Jeremiah 6:16, my paraphrased version, “stand in the way and see, ask for the ancient path, where the good way is and you will find rest for your souls.” To which he replied, “Oooh! I like this scripture very much! I want rest for my soul.” I said, “Jesus Christ is the rest.” as he was walking away. I don’t know that he heard me.

Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength: Weekend Fisher wraps us up with Liturgy of Luke: Confessions and Absolutions.

Confession: Lord, in the weight of my sin I cannot lift my eyes to heaven. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. (Luike 18:13)

Absolution: I tell you, the one who humbles himself before God is the one who is exalted; the one who pleads for mercy is the one who returns to his home justified before God. (Luke 18:14)

Amen, and amen.

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