Christian Carnival CCXLI

Welcome to this week's Christian Carnival.

*First up today is the Free Money Finance blog which presents The Plans of the Diligent where we are encouraged to start budgeting while young so when we are older it will just be a good habit. Very good idea!


*Jeff at Returning King posts Spiritual Realms (Introduction). This has to be one of the most unique posts I've ever read. I've always thought of the spiritual realm as what was going on in the heavenlies. But this post is an introduction to a series of various Biblical terms for the realms of heaven - New Jerusalem, and Hades/hell/Gehenna among others.


*Minister Mamie of the The Life I Now Live blog presents her post, A Love Story. That should grab our attention. Actually, it's an excellent presentation of the gospel from a very different perspective than we usually hear. Do be sure to read this one. It's a gem!


*Pastor WD Favour of WDFavour.com presents to us this week one of my favorite topics - Healing. To summarize Pastor WD's health, it was a disaster. Then he got born again and as he read his Bible, he realized he was now a new creature in Christ. Read the exciting conclusion of what happened next in his post, Supernatural Healing.

*What do you boast in? Your family? Your career? Yourself? Annette, of Fish and Cans presents her post, This Week's Sermon Passage. In this post she analyzes Jeremiah chapter 9:12-26 which tells us in what we really should be boasting.


*Steve at faithdoubt talks about two types of movies and books that show both the dark and the uplifting side of life. Should we go to the dark ones? Find out what Steve thinks about that in his post, The Speedy Knight, Fighting Rabbits, and what it all has to do with Art.


*At Brain Cramps for God the Fleetguy has really done his homework. Wonder what those earmarked funds were used for in Wasilla, Alaska - - you-know-who's hometown? Find out the real facts here instead of what the mainstream media is telling us in his post, False Testimony: The Wasilla Earmarks.


*The Rhymes With Right blog thinks Obama is missing it big time on the abortion question in a post entitled, Obama Still Doesn't Get it On Human Life.

*This week, elementary teacher's post at the Got Bible? blog is about the epidemic today of Christians being just too busy. Stress, anxiety and a constant state of fatigue are the results. Read Choosing Your Life for some insight as to how we can alleviate this problem.

*You need a little background for this one, so yours truly has researched it for all. Hector Avalos has written a book saying that Biblical studies are passe. Prof. Helmut Koester of Harvard Divinity School disputes this. OK...now into this wades blogger Drew at Notes From Off Center who writes a post entitled, Is the Bible Important for Christians?. In his post he tells us why he disagrees with Avalos' position. One of the things Drew tells us in this post is how the Bible intersects in an important way with American life.

Raffi at Parables of a Prodigal World shows us the cultural importance of what the Prodigal son was really asking his father in his post, "So he divided his property between them...".

*Who said this - "Spare the rod; spoil the child?" Many will answer, "The Bible." But actually, it was Benjamin Franklin who wrote that as one of his many pithy sayings. At the Tale of a Kansas Girl blog there are lots of these sayings (including the Franklin one) that people think are in the Bible but aren't. Ronnica comes to the conclusion that Biblical literacy might be lacking in her post, And Where's That in the Bible?.

*Zemanta at Journey Across the Sky has written a post about Sarah Palin entitled, Sarah Plain and Tall. In it she tells us why she feels Sarah is Plain Speaking and Standing Tall.

*Here is a great sentence from Claudia at the Standing Straight blog:

I need to keep remembering to set aside my flesh, listen to the Spirit, heed the Word of God, stand against the enemy and then wait on the Lord for the outcome.

Do read her entire post entitled, The Battle Is the Lord's.


*I think one of the most difficult things for me to do is to forgive those who don't even think they've done anything wrong against me. Jody takes up this difficult subject (at least it's difficult for me) in her post, Forgiveness Today at her blog, Jody's Devotionals .

*Minister Mamie at The Life I Now Live is surrounded at home by scads of males (husband and sons). And what do males do in the fall? Yes folks---it's It's Football Time (the name of her post)! And she points out that as her sons bond around the TV with their father, are we bonding like that with our Father in heaven?

*Henry at Participatory Bible Study Blog is this week Comparing Study Bible Introductions to Luke. He analyzes six study Bibles, most of them fairly mainstream. However there was one that caught my eye that I had never heard of - The Holy Spirit Encounter Bible.


*Rey at the Bible Archive blog gives us an extremely interesting and IMO important post, The Crippling of the Local Church. This post is part of a series. This week he presents 'Seven markers that outlined the boundaries of the church.' But what if some of the markers are missing? The reason this was an interesting post for me is because I am always interested in information about the early church, how it was organized and how we can get back to that today.


*Frankly folks, most of the time when people write the kind of thing Anthony has tackled, it's dry as a bone. However, IMO Anthony's post is far from dry and was very helpful, as well as informative to me. Anthony's blog is named Inquisitive and he does an excellent job at comparing our Christian lives to unleavened bread in his post, Celebrate the Unleavened Bread.

*Rodney at RodneyOlsen.net brings up a question that is being asked a lot today. If a person divorces because of abuse, adultery and desertion, can they remarry? After reading Rodney's introduction, you can then hear his interview with Barbara Roberts, author of Not Under Bondage. The post is entitled, Abuse, adultery and desertion.

*John gives us seven lessons we can all learn from the heart of Hannah in his post, Walking with God Through Adversity: Seven Lessons from the Heart of Hannah at his blog, Light Along the Journey. Here is one lesson as a tantalizer - Ask God to intervene. I really liked that one.


*Many people want the government to do a lot of things for them. But what was the federal government set up for in the first place way back in the late 18th century? Chris at Homeward Bound has a very informative post which includes answers to the nagging question, Why can't we just change things a little? Why should we still follow an 18th century document? Chris includes helpful links in his post to the items both in the Constitution and the Bible so it makes it very easy to follow his argument. Read his post entitled, The Case for Limited Government.

*Jeremy at Parableman refers in his post, AP Hit Piece On Palin, Focus on the Family about an AP article on Focus on the Family's Love Won Out conference regarding homosexuals and the church. Jeremy informs us that this AP article seriously misrepresents what the conference was all about. Sarah Palin is connected to it and Jeremey tells us about that too.

*Xinah at Livingx.net tells us in her post, Five Word Foundation that in the first chapter of Proverbs there are five key words that are very important to the Christian faith. Now aren't you curious as to what those five words are?

*Weekend Fisher at Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength has an absolutely fantastic post of which I am in absolute agreement. She shows the organizational structure of the first century church and how it gave Christians their theological truth. But then what about today? Isn't God doing a "new thing" today? Can't we do what we think is right? Please do read Annie's post entitled, If I were a 2nd century Christian ... since I'm a 21st century Christian .

*Jeff at ReturningKing.com takes on Kenneth Copeland's definition of faith in his post, Word of Faith: Erroneous Faith Theology. Like most of you I would imagine, Jeff sees Copeland's "force of faith" definition as erroneous. He goes into a lot of good detail to present his case. So please do read this post and then.....stay tuned for the next post to see a different view.

*OK....I just couldn't let Jeff's post go by without a rebuttal. My entry this week is entitled, What Exactly Did Kennth Hagin teach About Faith?. The main difference between my post and Jeff's is he focuses on Copeland while I focus on the guy who started the modern faith movement - Hagin. I do realize that I probably will be in the minority here, but folks, I just had to try....:)

Thank you so very much for visiting the Christian Carnival today. Next week we will have another exciting version of the carnival at Ancient Hebrew Poetry.