The Saints Unhindered

κηρυσσων την βασιλειαν του θεου και διδασκων τα περι του κυριου ιησου χριστου μετα πασης παρρησιας ακωλυτως. (A very literal translation of this sentence by the Google Translate tool: “preach the kingdom of God and taught the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ after all frankness unhindered access.” Acts 28:31

Saints on the Loose is not personal.  There will be very little information here about me or about my family.  The focus of the blog is about The Lord and His people and the unhindered access we have to further the Kingdom.  Despots, murderers, sarcasm, ridicule, accusations of bigotry and intellectual deficiency,and even vicious persecution with the full force of governments; none  of these have hindered the spread of the Gospel.

I am very aware of the news cycle but will not always speak on current events or controversies unless there is a Christian point to be taken from them.  Other people can and will do that.

This is not a devotional blog and will not necessarily follow the calendar of religious holidays and festivals.  The focus of the blog is intended to be intensely practical and to foster an intellectual and unapologetic presentation of the truth.

This blog is currently indexed on Baptist Top 1000, Bible Top 100, Blog Catalog, Yandex, Bing, and Google Search.  If you would like to index this blog on your search engine, feel free to do so.  Also feel free to suggest blog aggregators and search engines.  You may link to this blog.

Using This Blog: Labels

To enhance the usefulness of this blog to readers, I will from time to time explain some of the features available.  Today, I will tell you about the LABELS function.

The labels represent topics or subjects discussed in the body of the text of a post.  They are keywords which trigger search engines to find the individual posts and display them as responses to web searches.

On this blog, the labels appear in two places: 1. directly under each post is a list of keywords specific to the post, and, 2. at the end of the display page,  following the list of blogs and webpages I often view, is a complete list of all the labels used in this blog since its inception.  Clicking on a label word in either listing will display the posts which feature or mention that topic.  Some labels have only one related post while some have as many as thirty.  For those with multiple postings, you can view more posts by clicking on Older Posts.

In keeping with the nature of this blog, the topics discussed have been quite eclectic.  A sampling of labels from the list includes: archeology (3), Barack Obama (8), sexuality (10), manure (1), film commentary (36), death (4), cloning (1), Mr. Rogers (2), light bulb jokes (30), baptism, (5), and sports (10).

Selling the Confessional on eBay

Roman Catholic Priest Otto Weber needed cash for his Hirschstetten Parish in Vienna-Donaustadt, Austria, and had few ways to get it.  Then he had an idea!  He could go on eBay and offer up one of his confessional boxes for sale.  He knew the box would be a hard item to sell so he offered up some ideas for alternate uses for the thing.  It could be converted into a one person sauna, a small bar, or a children's playhouse, among other things.

Over two hundred offers were made, the largest being by some joker for 666 euros.  For those who don't know, 666 is the biblical number of The Beast, the Antichrist.

Church authorities were not amused and told Weber that "it is not acceptable to sell objects used in administering a sacrament..."

If you're interested in reading more about this, go to Google or Bing (or your favorite search engine) and enter search parameters like "Austria & confessional & Vienna."  On Google Search, I got 179 hits using this search set.