Dr Paul Allen

The man on the island. Perhaps you’ve encountered him in a friend’s argument against Christianity. Maybe you’ve even voiced the objection yourself. How could a good and loving God condemn to hell someone who’s never heard of him? When it comes to this emotionally vexing issue, there are two dominant positions among professing Christians: inclusivism and exclusivism. While both views maintain that Jesus is the only way to God, only one insists on the necessity of conscious faith in him. Allure of Inclusivism Inclusivism is the belief that salvation is only through Jesus Christ , but that there may be persons who are saved without knowing it. They are redeemed by the person and work of a Christ  they do not consciously embrace. Simply put, Jesus may save some who never hear of him. Inclusivists often cite  Romans 2:1–16 , a passage taken to imply that salvation is possible apart from God’s special revelation. The content of general revel...

“The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people.” ( Deuteronomy 7:7 ) Modern people—even Christians—tend to measure success in terms of bigness. God ’s measure, on the other hand, is based on quality, not quantity. There were undoubtedly millions of people on the earth, for example, when the Flood came in the days of Noah, but only “few, that is, eight souls were saved” as the waters lifted up the Ark ( 1 Peter 3:20 ). A few centuries after the Flood, populations had again increased, and great nations developed in Egypt, Sumeria, and elsewhere. But God called one man, Abraham , to establish a new nation, and he obeyed. Many great nations (Arabs, etc.) came from Abraham, but again God chose only one, Israel , to inherit the promise. Israel did grow, but as our text shows, even this chosen nation was nearly always insignificant compared to other nations. In Israel’s history, many instances a...

Dore Bible Sermon on the Mount (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) How appropriate, then, that the first petition in our Lord’s pattern for prayer focuses on God : “Hallowed be Thy name” (Matt. 6:9). Commentator Arthur W. Pink says, “How clearly then is the fundamental duty of prayer set forth. Self and all its needs must be given a secondary place, and the Lord freely accorded the preeminence in our thoughts and supplications. This petition must take the precedence, for the glory of God’s great name is the ultimate end of all things” (An Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1950], 161–62).  Even though He is our loving Father, who desires to meet our needs through His heavenly resources, our first petition is not to be for our benefit, but His. Thus “hallowed be Thy name” is a warning against self-seeking prayer because it completely encompasses God’s nature and man’s response to it. Jesus wasn’t reciting some nice words about God. Instead, He opened a whole...

Quadruple combination opened to the Book of Isaiah - note the cross references between Biblical and Latter-day Saint scripture in the footnotes (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Many profess a general belief in the  infallibility  of Scripture without belief in its  inerrancy . We canreject the sub-biblical understanding of the Bible for five reasons: 1. The  infallible but not inerrant  idea is historically unfounded and a recent invention. It is true that there are theologians who limit the scope of Biblical infallibility .  Theologians like I. Howard Marshall limit the scope of infallibility to the Bible’s  revelation of Christ.  Still, Evangelicals generally use the term in its  historic sense  of “unable to err.” Justin Taylor  rightly states, “The word  inerrant  means that something, usually a text, is ‘without error.’ The word  infallible —in its lexical meaning, though not necessarily in theologica...