Christian Carnival Time

Sorry it's a bit late folks, sometimes life intervenes. Duplicate entries from one person were not entered (one post per week per blog) and entries that seemed to go nowhere were not included as well (ones with links to sites that didn't actually "work"). If I've not included you and you think I should have, let me know.

There are some gems this week. :)

Bible Study Exposition Online (BibleSEO) starts us off with the Inductive Bible Study Method: How to Guide.

Inductive Bible Study method is one of the most effective bible study methods for personal bible study, quiet time or group bible studies. This guide presents three basic steps of Inductive bible studies, Observation, Interpretation and Application. It will walk you through each step of inductive bible studies in details.

My Hands For War gives us Listening to God - Look, Listen, Obey.

God recently gave me an epiphany recently through a parenting analogy that I wanted to share here.

Why does God Let Bad Things Happen is brought to us by Glowing Face Man.

A common argument invoked by critics of an all-powerful deity is: “Why does God let bad things happen?” The idea is that if the universe were run by a super-god with infinite power, then surely He wouldn’t let kids starve to death in Africa. It’s very interesting and illuminating to look at this question using different analogies for life.

Seeking the Truth presents us with A helpful Perspective on Growing Old and Dying.

In the book, The Word Leaps the Gap, there is an excellent article by Richard Hays titled, 'The Christian Practice of Growing Old.' He has some excellent insight on the New Testament's answer to the problem of death.

We're at War! part one is brought to us by W2Wsoul. This individual also submitted a poem, but we supposed just allow one entry per carnival so I chose this one as it's easier to pick a snippet as teaser. Go check out the rest of blog to find the poem. :)

Yesterday I had a heart to heart with my 8 year old son, trying to understand why he sometimes misbehaves in spite of my daily words of encouragement and correction. His simple explanation was: “Mom, I don’t know why – I just can’t help myself.” Even though I was frustrated, it was hard to truly be upset because I understand where he’s coming from.

INSPIKS shows up with How Great is Our God.

I didn’t take this photo for its photographic value…I don’t think it is a special photograph in the artistic meaning. I took it because of the spiritual value it holds to me.

Carole Gold gives us The Law of Surrender: Giving Up That Which You Desire.

There's an indescribable freedom that comes from letting go. I say this without hesitation because I spent decades trying to hold on to people and things or to control outcomes. Having given that up, I speak with certainty about the joy of surrender....a concept that engenders fear in so many of us and yet, ironically, is the only way to know and experience Life at its best... and as intended.

The Bible Archive asks us this "Should One Interpret Scripture?"

Anytime I’m in a discussion with just about any Christian outside of Protestantism, the proof text of 2 Peter 1:20 comes up. The person, hearing my explanation of a passage, claims that my interpretation of the text is not valid by itself—I need the authority of the Magisterium or the Early Fathers or Something. But is that what the verse is teaching—that any interpretation of the text is dependent on the totality of the Church (be it the historical Church or the body of teaching from the Church) over (and against) the individual?

damascusmoments presents us with Homophobia, religion and a radical alternative.

BBC News is debating an increase in homophobic violence on Britain’s streets. The story includes a comment by Michael Cashman MEP. .............Christians get a lot of stuff wrong, and unfortunately having a faith doesn’t prevent that. I’d say, unscientifically, that Christians mess up at least as much as (and possibly more than) other people. But the stuff-ups are our doing. They represent what’s wrong with us, not something wrong with Jesus. They’re the reason we need Jesus in the first place.

OLIN e-Book e-Publishing Blog hands us a post on The Evil Otherside. The link given to me didn't work so I had to search for the article, hopefully the link will work for you.

When we were kids, this was one of our most favorite times of the year! Candy on top candy until our stomachs turned to sugar. Everyone had candy galore, and it was for us-the kids! Wow talk about some fond memories. Unfortunately, today the fun of the season has been over-shadowed by the 'otherside'. You know the 'otherside', the real devil, demons, witchs, ghosts and so on.

In Him we live and move and have our Being grants us this article ...that they may be one as we are one.

Approximately 450 years after King Henry VIII split from Rome, the Vatican has paved the way for allowing disaffected Anglicans to join the Catholic Church. As a convert to the Catholic faith, I'm delighted to hear this news.

Stepping Out in Faith to the Nations deeds us with 11.02.09. Not an auspicious name for a post, but this post has a heart message.

The first time I watched Hotel Rwanda, I was not a Christian. I remember thinking, what a tragedy, then moving on with the usual daily thing. Things of this magnitude did not affect me much at all. I quickly forgot Rwanda.

I have been praying to God everyday to break my heart because I can be quite hard hearted. I watched Hotel Rwanda again today. It broke my heart intensely… Nearly 1 million people were murdered in just 100 days over race…

Culture wars: Foolish expectations is laid on us by Brain Cramps for God.

Point one of Jared Wilson's criticism of the "culture wars":

1. Its expectation is foolish.

Whether you believe America was ever a Christian nation or not, it is theologically naive and demonstrably false to think laws or policies make anyone a Christian. You cannot create or recapture a people for Christ by illegalizing sin. (Which, by the way, is not to say that certain sins shouldn’t be illegal. It is only to say that, for instance, outlawing gay marriage or repealing Roe v. Wade won’t make anybody a Christian, much less make America “a Christian nation.”)

In my opinion, the expectations are not just foolish because they are about the kingdom of world instead of the Kingdom of God -- they are foolish because the struggles against abortion and gay marriage are not going to succeed even on a secular level.

Boston Bible Geeks passes out this post entitled Why is David a "man after God's own heart"?

In preparing for my own teaching, I’ve been listening to some more lectures from Dr Douglas Stuart’s OT Survey course, provided free by Biblical Training. He has one lecture in particular called Three Kings, contrasting David with Saul and Solomon. In it, he argues that when the Bible says, “The LORD has sought out for himself a man after his own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14), it is referring to David not being a syncretist, unlike the other two.

How Do You Handle Counsel? is the question of the day for He Speaks to me.

How many times have you (or I) said, “Thank you” not just to God, but to the person or persons, the reprover, that He sends our way?

Christian Personal Finance gives us Finding the Will of God for Your life.

If you have goals and dreams as I do, it’s very important that you know how to first recognize them as God’s will for your life and then how to make them become reality.

Who Am I? presents Another Budding Thespian in the Family.

My youngest son was selected last winter to play the part of Winthrop in a Sikeston Little Theatre production of “The Music Man.” It was his first play. He had always been a little shy, so I wasn’t sure how well he would handle being in the spotlight.

Jesus: the Fulfillment of the Law is donated by ReturningKing.com.

Jesus took great care to present the manner of his work as something which built upon that which God had already revealed.

Crossroads shows up with Weeds of Apostasy.

The evangelical church today is in terrible shape because they have basically allowed years of weeds to grow, thus turning the movement into a kind of graveyard. If they had cut the weeds out when they appeared instead of allowing and rationalizing why they needed to be there, I think we would have a much better church on the whole than we have now.

The Organ and The Tramp consigned by Jevlir Caravansary. An analogy that I can't pull a snippet from ... so just go read it. Think!

For his Glory grants this Eagle or Seagull?

I was driving past a dump the other day. It was a windy day and above the dump were hundreds of seagulls "soaring" around the dump. I began thinking in my mind about the differences between a seagull and eagle and I began to wonder how we as Christians actually tend to live.

Free Money Finance shows up with How Tithing Can Transform You.

As regular readers know, I've written a ton about tithing (more on that later). So when I ran into this summary of the book Tithing: Test Me in This that listed how tithing can transform you -- I had to run with it. Here are the ways they say tithing can change you:

Discussion Grounds has this post Letter 1 to Thinking Christian. I had no idea how to pull a snippet from this so....if you want to enter into the discussion do so. I wasn't sure what to think quite honestly, so I may go back after I've thought a while.

Birth Control, Global warming and the bible is given to us by Old Testament and Ecology.

A month or so ago, there was a story about a British report that birth control could save us from global warming. At least that’s what some talk radio host’s labeled it. In reality, the report was a little more reasoned than those talk radio host’s want you to believe. The premise in the report is that, “the world’s population is projected to jump to 9 billion by 2050, with more than 90 percent of that growth coming from developing countries.” That may or may not be the case, but for the sake of argument I will grant that premise.

Christian Universities shows up with 20 Incredible Iphone Apps for Christian Evangelists.

With more problems and followers than time, many Christian evangelists are finding out that their iPhone can be used for much more than phone calls. Below are the top 20 incredible iPhone Apps for Christian evangelists. The apps can help with prayer, Bible study, productivity, and much more.

Parableman gives us Eggs as Persons.

Pro-lifers are trying to pass an initiative defining human organisms as persons all the way back to conception. Opponents of the initiative apparently can't think of a better way to oppose this than to call it the "eggs-as-persons" initiative. I would have thought they'd be smart enough to know the biological difference between a conceptus and a mere egg. Or maybe they just think the voting public is stupid enough not to know the difference.

Pizza, Beer and the Glory of God is bestowed by Lessons Learned While Being Still.

But, I believe the underlying question John Piper was addressing in his message is this: what do we live for? What do we spend our lives in pursuit of? Unfortunately, too many times the answer is not the glory of God, but rather a long list of meaningless things.

My own post this week from Fish and Cans is a bit of fluff. It's been going on three weeks now of illness is this house and this made me laugh. Sometimes laughter is a good thing. :)