Dr Paul Allen

What does the Bible say about the Trinity? (2 Cor. 13:14) The Trinity is one of the great theological mysteries. There are some who think that because we believe in monotheism, one God , we cannot accept the concept of the Trinity. Yet the Bible teaches that the Godhead consists of three divine Persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit —each fully God, each showing fully the divine nature (Luke 3:21, 22). The Father is the fountainhead of the Trinity, the Creator, the first cause. He is the primary thought, the concept of all that has been and will be created. Jesus said, " My Father has been working until now, and I have been working" (John 5:17). The Son is the "Logos" or expression of God—the "only begotten" of the Father—and He Himself is God. Further, as God incarnate, He reveals the Father to us (John 14:9). The Son of God is both the agent of creation and mankind’s only Redeemer. The Holy Spirit , the third Person of the Trinity, proceeds from t...

“I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.” ( Deuteronomy 30:19 ) Shortly before his death, Moses restated the law and the covenant between God and His people summed up in the greatest commandment : “Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” ( Deuteronomy 6:5 ). Furthermore, Moses claimed that “this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven . . . . Neither is it beyond the sea” ( Deuteronomy 30:11-13 ). Nothing about it was hard to understand. “But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it” ( Deuteronomy 30:14 ). Indeed, the evidence that God is Creator , Judge, Provider, and Redeemer is all around us. Our text informs us that “heaven and earth” are witnesses of God’s...

Rev. Jonathan Edwards, a leader of the Great Awakening, is still remembered for his sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Why is God so eager to pour his eternal blessing on simple people like you and me? It’s a question too many of us don’t ask at all. Life often seems hard and bleak and stressful, and we grow blind to God’s present blessings and the cause for future hopes. God’s people, stuck in Babylonian exile , could relate. Their precious city, Jerusalem , was now a heap of smashed stones. Their temple, burned and trashed ( Isaiah 64:11–12). In the rubble, the hopes and dreams of God’s exiled people probably never got much higher above imagining a return home for a chance to rebuild and restore their home. Isaiah 60 But into the crumbled-down world of God’s covenant people, Isaiah 60 paints a stunning picture of God’s promises and future blessing. Where God’s exiled people may have simply been happy with new walls around old J...

Cover of The Idea of the Holy C. S. Lewis called modern Christians to recovery of reverence for God —who, in the now-famous Chronicles of Narnia image of the lion Aslan, is depicted as good but not safe. Likewise, evangelical mystic A. W. Tozer complained in the early 1960s that “in the majority of our meetings, there is scarcely a trace of reverent thought … little sense of the divine Presence, no moment of stillness, no solemnity, no wonder, no holy fear. But always there is a dull or a breezy song leader full of awkward jokes.” The first reference to “ fear of God ” in the OT is Genesis 20:11, where the Mesopotamian Abraham complains that there is no “fear of God” in Philistia. It is against this backdrop that “fear of God” (yir’at ’elohim), “fear of the Lord ” (yir’at yhwh/’adonay), and “fear of the Almighty” (yir’at shadday) are to be understood throughout the OT itself.  Indeed, yir’ah alone is sometimes used in the sense of “piety” (Job 4:6; 15:4; 22:4) o...