Maturity or Masculinity
OK, here is a good post on men in the church. I have nothing to add to it. Men, let’s read it and put it into practice. Hat tip: Lingamish.
God: Nice or Not?
One of my Old Testament professors once told me that he thought survey courses might better be left to the end of one’s program, that one could greatly benefit by a survey course after one had studied more deeply into the various elements. I agree, though I would suggest a starting survey and then a…
Denominational vs Non-Denominational
My wife and I have had several discussions recently about apportionments in the United Methodist Church. For those of you who are not Methodist, apportionments are funds paid by the local church to their conference or other higher authority to support the work of the broader church. Many of these funds go to administrative functions…
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…
Christian Carnival CXLI
This is just a bit late, because I was out of town. Christian Carnival CLI is now up at A Penitent Blogger. I will try to take a look through and highlight some posts that attract my attention before the next one is posted. You can expect to find some impressions from the Charisma Book…
Christian Carnival CXLI Posted
This is just a bit late, because I was out of town. Christian Carnival CLI is now up at A Penitent Blogger. Thanks to Penitens for a good job.
Out of Town – at Charisma Book Expo
I’ll be out of town at the Charisma Book Expo in Atlanta Georgia from today, September 26 through Monday October 2. I will be stopping by to check comments and so forth as I have time, but I don’t expect to make new entries. As the owner of a small and new business, Energion Publications,…
Out of Town – at Charisma Book Expo
I’ll be out of town at the Charisma Book Expo in Atlanta Georgia from today, September 26 through Monday October 2. I will be stopping by to check comments and so forth as I have time, but I don’t expect to make new entries. The Christian Blog Carnival should be posted tomorrow, and I do…
Distinguishing Ideology and Linguistic Differences
I located a post on Bible translations through the Methodist Blogs Weekly Roundup (for which I thank John the Methodist for his usual good job). The post is Ideology in Translations, but while I certainly believe ideology is involved in translations, I don’t see a battle of liberal vs conservative ideology here, and I also…
Finding Good Role Models for Girls in the Bible
A post by Peter Kirk over on Speaker of Truth, titled Deborah and a woman from Bethlehem, and some interesting comments made there suggests to me some more writing about my favorite topic: the SHARING stage of Bible study. (For an outline of my method, see The Participatory Study Method. Some of the foundation for…
Inreach and Outreach
My previous post, The Most Wasted Piece of Architecture, didn’t generate discussion here, but it was picked up by Locusts and Honey with a substantial quote, and some interesting discussion took place there. The discussion seemed to center a good deal around the specific issue of church sanctuaries. But what I would hope we would…
Asking Questions of a Biblical Text
An excellent technique for digging deeper into a Bible text is to formulate questions about the text, and then look for answers to those questions. I discuss this briefly in my essay Reading the Text Precisely. A starting point for this is simply to ask basic fact questions about the text. Many difficult and angry…
The Most Wasted Piece of Architecture
As I was driving with my wife yesterday, I made a comment that had been bugging me all day. “You know,” I said, “A church sanctuary is the most wasted piece of architecture you’ll see on the landscape.” Now my wife knows not to go wild when I say things like that. She didn’t ask…
Christian Carnival CXL
Christian Carnival CXL has been posted at Lux Venit. There’s a good deal of good stuff to check out. Without prejudice to the whole list, I’d like to call special attention to the following: Tight Theological HatbandsI’m not reformed in theology, but I have long thought one of the strengths of the reformed camp was…
The Prosperity Gospel
And another exciting entry, more than a week old, from Ben Witherington, this time, ‘Just in Time’– ‘God Wants You Wealthy’, dealing with the “health and wealth gospel” or “prosperity gospel.” I’m very slow to condemn movements, but the prosperity gospel seems to be just about diametrically opposed to the spirit of Jesus Christ. Go,…
Ben Witherington on the Pope’s Speech
While I have reflected largely on the single item in the Pope’s speech and the Muslim reaction, Ben Witherington has posted an analysis of the larger content of the speech. He underlines some things that I would want to debate in the speech as well. A key item from my point of view here is…
Genesis 6:5-8: Cause of the Flood
I’m trying to take this passage in smaller chunks than I usually do so that I don’t end up with so many incredibly long posts. We’ve been watching the deterioration of the human race throughout these chapters. Genesis 3 gives one view of the start. Chapter 4 carries that story forward. If viewed in conjuction…
Christian Carnival CXL
Christian Carnival CXL has been posted at Lux Venit. There’s a good deal of good stuff to check out. I’m not in there, but we’re working on that. Thanks to Leslie for a nice looking, easy to read post.
Violent God
As I approach the actual story of the flood in my series on Genesis 1-11 on the Participatory Bible Study blog, my attention is drawn to the problem of violence in the Bible generally, condoned by God, commanded by God, or even carried out by God. Recently on the web I’ve seen quite a number…
Revelation Before and After Jesus
Some time ago (September 5, 2005) Adrian Warnock wrote an excellent entry on the need for a Christian experience in the present (hat tip: Peter Kirk). As usual, whether I agree or disagree, Adrian does a fine job of presenting his position, and in this case, I do agree. He continued that entry with another…
Bible as Conversation
Daniel has an interesting post on E-Merging suggesting that we view the Bible as a conversation. He says: In real conversations, one participant doesn’t just sit back and agree with everything being said. There are tensions and resolutions, and some questions are simply left unanswered. I think this is an excellent approach to Bible study…
Fareed Zakaria on Oil
Fareed Zakaria has an excellent Newsweek article on oil, The Real Story of Pricey Oil. In it he suggests that we need to get serious about reducing and stabilizing demand, and about developing new technology. He discusses the politics of oil production in a clear and straightforward fashion. This is something to which we need…
Literary and Artistic Snobbery
I recall my first college English class when I informed the professor that I was going to write on patriotic elements in the poetry of Alfred Lord Tennyson. He made it clear that he would prefer a different author; for some reason Tennyson didn’t match up. He also made it clear he’d prefer a different…
Today on the Moderate Christian Blog Aggregator
Just to get a taste of what is available on the blogs covered by the Moderate Christian Blog Aggregator, let me give you a list of the most recent posts, in the order in which they appeared when I viewed the aggregator, with the exception of my own blogs. Note that blogs are randomized with…