Gleaning from the Christian Carnival

A good start for blogging on my return after a few days out is to link to a few of the entries from the Christian Carnival CXLI that caught my attention. As always, I’d love to read and comment on more of these entries, but I don’t have time to essentially redo the carnival. Go check it out yourself.

Here are some entries that particularly caught my attention:

• Revelation Introduction
  Michele of Life Under the Sun began a series on the book of Revelation. Based on the thoroughness of her introduction (I have a tendency to tell people to grab a commentary for this sort of thing) I suspect we will get some interesting and substantial material as she works her way through. I’m planning to follow this. I’ve been thinking in terms of doing some blogging on prophecy, so there may be a connection.
• The First Fantasy of the Bible
  Here Adam Graham talks about the Parable of the Trees (Judges 9) and makes some interesting and helpful comments on the value of this genre of literature. This entry is a definite highlight in my blog reading.
• Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Not Political Parties
  OK, this is the third time in a row I’ve highlighted a post from Laura on Pursing Holiness, but how could I possibly resist this excellent post? I think some of my views would make her wish to “crush [my] argument into oblivion” and vice versa. But it is a good idea to remember that “brother and sister” thing that goes with the “love” thing!
• Collins – A Believer Looks at the Human Genome – Epilogue
  This is the conclusion of a series, and it’s worthwhile reading the whole thing. I would simply comment here that I think the effort to find evolution in the Bible is not a constructive one, though the effort at seeing how it might be possible is really well done. I think that the Bible comments on God’s place in creation and the fact of creation. Evolution is derived from the physical evidence and comments on the “how.” Nonetheless, this is good reading and will challenge your thinking no matter what position you start from.
• Faith and Conversion
  This little article discusses the problem of attempting conversion by force. It is good to remember that Christians have tried to do this in the past. Some Muslims would like to do it in the present, and in neither case was it right. This post addresses this issue from the Chrsitian perspective.