Hi there! Welcome to this week’s Christian Carnival. Here is the lineup:
Devotionals
*How about 20 Bible verses on the subject of Perseverance? We could all probably use those right now. I was fascinated to read this post because I learned that there were different types of perseverance and Bible verses pertaining to all of them. To find out what these different types are and the great verses Pam at What Christians Want to Know has put with them, read her excellent post entitled, Bible Verses About Perseverance: 20 Defining Scriptures.
Theology
*I found this post fascinating. Austin at the keyboarding theologians blog examines two different concepts of what the concept “free” means in his post, entitled, Love is Free as in Speech.
Finance
*This blog post by Emily at the Evolving Personal Finance blog presents managing your debt and finances the Christian Way a little differently than anything I’ve read before. I don’t want to give it away but here is a hint: while you are doing it God’s way, your peer group may wonder about you. Please do read this short but very effective post at Living a Step Behind.
Apologetics
*Wow! Maryann at the ichthus 77 blog has snagged world famous Christian philosopher Dr. Alvin Plantinga to respond to a challenge from another philosopher. In this post, Wilkins and the EAAN -- a reply by Dr. Alvin Plantinga, Dr. Plantinga shows logically what his argument is about evolution and naturalism. This is one of those “philosophy reads” so it will need to be read slowly. I just want to know one thing after reading it. Do we have modified monkey brains or not?
poetry
*The Jevlir Caravansary blog presents a really fascinating description of God’s shape. Yes, you read that correctly. So what IS God’s shape and where do you see it? Check out Henry’s post, Seeing God’s Shape, written in a really neat poetic form.
Other
*Becky of the charliebrownteacher blog has a problem. In fact it’s a problem many of us have from time to time. To find out what her problem is (and ours too), and how she resolves it, hop on over to her post entitled, What if I Don’t Want to be Strong.
*Beth of the infaith blog needed a book to teach her release-time class. Read her post, Just What I Neededto find the unusual place she found it.
*If you haven’t noticed, the atheists and secularists are a-risin’ everywhere. Carson at the Reasons for God blog tells us about a conference for secularists. They have advertised that there would be generosity there. Carson wants them to prove it by being really generous and……well, you’ll need to read his post entitled The Reason Rally and Generosity to find out what Carson wants them to do.
*Chris at the Pietist Schoolman blog writes about what happens on Ash Wednesday when people receive the ashes on their forehead. I found this post very informative as I really didn’t know why Catholic churches do this. Read the post, An Imposition to learn about this Lenten practice.
*Many years ago a verse in Proverbs might have very well saved the life of my boyfriend and mine too. You would be surprised how handy these verses in the Book of Proverbs are. But how do you get these gems inside of you when you need them? Well, thankfully, Kathryn of the The Peculiar Club blog has a wonderful post in which she helps us to get a hold of memorizing the Proverbs we need to have. To start your rich study of Proverbs, please do read her blog entitled,
Make the Most of the Book of Proverbs.
*My entry this week is about how NOT to help people. You can read it here.
Happy Reading, Everyone!
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Helping People...Not
Wednesday, February 29, 2012Helping People....Not
I am in a new Christian chat room. This one is the best I've been in since I started the Christian chat routine in 1996. Christian chat rooms are very interesting because you can really gage where the mainstream Christian is in their life and in thier faith. It is apparent fairly soon that Christians know the right answer, but they cannot seem to get it to work. Last night a girl was in the room and she said she was fed up with Christians because she needs a lot of help (she is unemployed and single) but she never received an ounce of aide form Christians or churches. She said she was tired of battling alone. In Third World countries Christians would never say what we heard from the other "roomies." They would have said what I said (which, by the way, didn't go over so well). And what is that? The problem may not be with this young woman but with churches that refuse to organize into community. It's the American obsession with individuality. Thankfully, many evangelical leaders have been writing and talking about this situation recently. Also,many churches are starting small home groups where people can really get to know each other. But the "advice" in the room I heard last night was the same advice given 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago and so forth. It never seems to change. It's alwyas about, "why don't you help others," "maybe you can get a job here or there or here," and of course our all-time favorite, "the Bible says." I told her she needed to hear God and what He was saying in her situation. I also told her to ask God for the Scripture or Scriptures He wanted for you to get her through this. I gave an example as to how this got me through some terrible times. Well, one roomie went ballistic that I would suggest Chuirstians could hear God. You would think I murdered somebody. I was arrogant according to her. I tried nicely to say I wasn't saying I only heard God but it didn't help. Of course she had no advice for our suffering roomie. Then the roomie with serious health problems told her to be positive. Well, with all due respect to the sick roomie, that won't help this girl. I could tell this one was like me and I kept telling her I understood. My point is this: we have not come any further in helping people than when I became a Christian almost 49 years ago. Meanwhile, our Third World Christian brothers and sisters are trying to hear God for those who are sufering and actually believing the Bible in how to help. Maybe we should all move to Africa or India or Southeast Asia. Then maybe our problems would be more resolved. Do ya think?
Posted by Diane R at 10:53 AM
I am in a new Christian chat room. This one is the best I've been in since I started the Christian chat routine in 1996. Christian chat rooms are very interesting because you can really gage where the mainstream Christian is in their life and in thier faith. It is apparent fairly soon that Christians know the right answer, but they cannot seem to get it to work. Last night a girl was in the room and she said she was fed up with Christians because she needs a lot of help (she is unemployed and single) but she never received an ounce of aide form Christians or churches. She said she was tired of battling alone. In Third World countries Christians would never say what we heard from the other "roomies." They would have said what I said (which, by the way, didn't go over so well). And what is that? The problem may not be with this young woman but with churches that refuse to organize into community. It's the American obsession with individuality. Thankfully, many evangelical leaders have been writing and talking about this situation recently. Also,many churches are starting small home groups where people can really get to know each other. But the "advice" in the room I heard last night was the same advice given 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago and so forth. It never seems to change. It's alwyas about, "why don't you help others," "maybe you can get a job here or there or here," and of course our all-time favorite, "the Bible says." I told her she needed to hear God and what He was saying in her situation. I also told her to ask God for the Scripture or Scriptures He wanted for you to get her through this. I gave an example as to how this got me through some terrible times. Well, one roomie went ballistic that I would suggest Chuirstians could hear God. You would think I murdered somebody. I was arrogant according to her. I tried nicely to say I wasn't saying I only heard God but it didn't help. Of course she had no advice for our suffering roomie. Then the roomie with serious health problems told her to be positive. Well, with all due respect to the sick roomie, that won't help this girl. I could tell this one was like me and I kept telling her I understood. My point is this: we have not come any further in helping people than when I became a Christian almost 49 years ago. Meanwhile, our Third World Christian brothers and sisters are trying to hear God for those who are sufering and actually believing the Bible in how to help. Maybe we should all move to Africa or India or Southeast Asia. Then maybe our problems would be more resolved. Do ya think?
Posted by Diane R at 10:53 AM
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Great Quote of the Week
Here is a great quote I borrowed from the Challies' site (www.challies.com). You might need to read it several times to get its full impact. I actually had to read it twice.
Our business is to present the Christian faith clothed in modern terms, not to propagate modern thought clothed in Christian terms. —
.....J.I. Packer
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