Christian Carnival CLX

Welcome to the Christian Carnival for this week.

*One of the hot topics in the evangelical world today, especially between emergent and non-emergent churches is, How far do we go into the culture?; How far do we stray from Scripture?; and, How do we know if a church really is hearing from God? Veracity at Veracity-the Way begins a dialogue of this very important topic in her post,
God’s Vote.

*At Church Hopping, you’ll find Five Old Testament Anecdotes. Here’s one of the five to start you off – Is Psalm 51:10-12 (…renew a right spirit in me) for Christians today?

*Martin, a former University science professor and now current blogger at Sun and Shield, ponders the question, What does it mean when God promised as many offspring to Abraham as the stars? You can read his answer at in the post entitled, Numbering the Stars.

*Jordan of Power Blog tackles a question that I think is one of the most important facing the church today – the tension between accepting sinners but not their sin. Jordan quotes Augustine from two of his writings in this most well-thought out post,
Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin.

*John at Light Along the Journey has written another post in a series about the book, Future Grace by John Piper. He answers the question, "what is at the root of anxiety?" in his post,
Fighting Anxiety.

*Annette at Fish and Cans asks,
How do we then keep Sunday's special? . Her article provides a good tension between making the Sabbath too legalistic vs. just doing whatever we want to on that day.

*Is there a difference between an Emerging church and an Emergent church? This one is of prime interest to me so I really appreciated what Shawn of Lo-Fi Tribe wrote in his post,
Essential Differences Between Emerging and Emergent .

*What word did Arthur Stace write 500,000 times? And what was the result of that action? Find the answer at thoughtsofagyrovague in the post entitled,
Eternity.

*Brian at Real Ministries points out that the Old Testament can also teach us about being missional. He lists seven points that I had not thought of before. You can read this fascinating post at
Missional Hermeneutics and the Old Testament .

*Michael at Tantalizing But True challenges us to be more specific when reading about sin – in other words, let’s hone in on our own sin. HIs post is entitled,
Don’t Get Specific With Me.

*I don’t know if you’ve heard what is going on in Venezuela. The newly elected president, Hugo Chavez, recently declared himself what would be considered a dictator. So, what does this mean for the Christians there? Barbara at Tidbits and Treasures challenges us to do something in addition to praying for the Venezuelan Christians and the missionaries who work with them. To find out what this is, read her post,
Christians Concerned for Venezuela.

*What does the Hebrew word Shema mean and why is it important for us? Matt at Random Acts of Verbiage tells us in his post,
The Shema.

*Let’s see…um…I think I will pick definition #3 of that word. And for the next word I think I will pick definition #2; and for the next one, definition #7. This is what happens all too often when people do Greek and Hebrew word studies using Strong’s Concordance but don’t know the grammar of Greek and Hebrew. Henry at Participatory Bible Study Blog has a long overdue critique of this dangerous method in his post entitled,
Word Study Dangers: Overview.

*We interrupt the Christian Carnival to bring you A Saturday Funny brought to you courtesy of
Rev Bill at Rev Bill.

*Thomas at Everyday Liturgy discusses the terms, or "jargon" we use in our church services and how they can be both helpful and confusing, especially to the outside world, in his post,
Worship and Jargon.

*Does nature exist simply for the pleasure and use of man? If so, we might not have any obligation toward it. But perhaps there is another reason for its existence too. A.J. at
Put Up Thy Sword discusses this and throws in a lot of philosophers for all of us philosophy fans – Aristotle, Aquinas, Jardins – and even the neo-Platonists show up in his post,
The Earth: A Gift to Man from God

*At Three Sticks we learn that tithing can be a matter of conforming our will to God’s in the post entitled,
How to Give and Tithe Cheerfully.

*Here is something I didn’t know. There actually is a good side to apathy. Our friend Mark at Pseudo-Polymath talks about this in his post,
In Praise of Apathy.


*Jeremy at Parableman discusses Leland Ryken’s book, Choosing a Bible in his post,
Review: Leland Ryken, Choosing a Bible

*Mick at Romans 15:4 Project is resonating with a theme that I have been exploring at my blog too. More and more Christians are being restricted (read that persecuted) in our telling the larger society the gospel. I commend Mick for his post,
Prayer Team: Boldly Proclaim the Gospel in encouraging us to hang tough.

*Richard at dokeo kago grapho soi kratistos theophilos discusses the visions of abomination in the 8th chapter of Ezekiel and its relevance to the 16th chapter of Luke, in his post,
Band of Strong Men.

*The Fleet Guy at Brain Cramps for God says that it might be time for another type of discussion about abortion. You can read this fascinating post at
AbortionFoundations of a Discussion

*Don at The Evangelical Ecologist questions the use of chemicals in the environment and their impact on the unborn. He also shows the hypocrisy of those who want pollution’s effects curbed on the animal kingdom but have no trouble with chemicals injected into an embryo to induce abortion. Read this fascinating post at
Pre-Fetal Americans and Ecology.


*Matthew at Mere Orthodoxy asks us to open up ourselves to the book of John in his post,
The Key to the Gospel of John: Final Installment.

*David at Lingamish shows us how the Greek word for "lord," kurios, is translated in two languages – Portuguese and a Bantu language in
"Why do you call me Lord?" Part 5: Translating kurios in languages of the world.

*"Smokey the Bear was more effective in getting a generation of Americans to worry about forest fires than are a labful of scientists in making us worry about global warming." This is the start of Jan’s post at The View From Her. And why does Smokey do a better job? Jan says, "Environmentalists are bursting with facts, passion and dire warnings... But they have no story……Christians have the best story…." Read her great post on telling a story at The Power of Story.

*I'm sure we've all had friends who were suckered into selling health junk in direct marketing programs where they were promised great wealth. Dr. Philip comments on this at Fed Up With Health at his blog, The Blog of Dysfunction.

*And last but hopefully not least, my entry is entitled We're Purty Stupeed. This is the final post in a series on the coming persecution of Christians here in America. In this post I look at how the media portrays us.