Dr Paul Allen

The story of the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal, found in 1 Kings 18:17-40,  is one the most amusing stories in the Bible.  To give you some background, King Ahab, of the northern kingdom of Israel, married a heathen woman named Jezebel, who henpecked and corrupted him to allow the worship of Baal and Asherah, a pagan fertility god and goddess.  This did not sit well with God, who appointed Elijah, a prophet, to confront Ahab. God sent numerous troubles on Israel due to their unfaithfulness, but Ahab blamed Elijah. Elijah became such a thorn in Ahab’s side that the king (or more likely, Jezebel) sought to kill him. Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal to a contest Finally, Elijah called for a showdown between himself and the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah on Mount Carmel to prove who was the true God. Boy, talk about being outnumbered! He then told the king to assemble the people of Israel so they might ...

History has repeatedly demonstrated that as goes the leader, so go the people. The history of Israel is no exception. During any moment in its history, the health and prosperity of Israel was directly tied to how the king measured up against the Deuteronomic rubric: [The king] must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, “You shall never return that way again.” And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold. And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he ma...

The oneness of God is under relentless assault today — though not in the way we might expect. At least in the West, very few try to make a public case for traditional polytheism. There is little pressure in the mainstream to affirm many gods (at least not formally). Rather, the pressure which continues to rise with each generation, and each passing year, is the pervasive assumption of secularism — the pressure to sideline any talk of the one God and live together as though there were none. In the ancient world, various pantheons of gods abounded. In Canaan. In Egypt. In Babylon. In Athens. In Rome. Everywhere God’s strange monotheistic people turned, they encountered polytheists. They were tempted incessantly to adopt the world’s gods to try and improve their lives. Against this pressure, the Hebrew Scriptures, again and again, assert the oneness, and supremacy, of the true God, not many gods. But today, the mounting social pressure is to believe in (or at least to live as if...

If there’s one part of the Bible virtually everyone has heard of, it’s 666—the “number of Beast.” And if there’s one thing no one can agree upon, it’s what that number stands for. We see 666 in Revelation 13:18: “let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.” The wording here is important: John tells readers that the number must be “calculated,” which means there must be a hidden meaning behind it. But how do we calculate it? Calculating 666 When it comes to 666, one gematria explanation is that the number represents Nero Caesar. The Greek Neron Kaisar adds up to 1,005, but when the name is transliterated into the Hebrew letters nrwn qsr, the sum is 666. Nero Caesar also would explain the variant number of the Beast (616) found in some New Testament manuscripts. Transliterating the Latin Nero Caesar into Hebrew, nrw qsr, yields 616, suggesting John may have been thinking of the well-known Nero Redivivus my...

And Jehu wrote and sent letters to Samaria, to the rulers of Jezreel, to the elders, ... Now the king's sons, seventy persons, were with the great men of the city, who .... Then Jehu sent throughout all Israel; and all the worshipers of Baal came, so that ... To say he made it a refuse dump is literally that he made it a public toilet. 2 Kings 9:6-8 Israeli archaeologists have discovered a stone toilet while excavating a Jewish shrine at an ancient city gate, evidence that a biblical king tried to stamp out Baal worship there. King Hezekiah deliberately defiled the eighth century BC shrine at the door to the ancient city of Lachish, as part of a campaign to centralise Jewish faith in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said. "A toilet was installed in the Baal temple as the ultimate desecration of that place," the IAA said in a statement. "A stone fashioned in the shape of a chair with a hole in its centre was found in the corner of the room." ...

Andrea Celesti - Queen Jezabel Being Punished by Jehu - WGA4622 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) ATHALIAH Her name means: "The Lord Is Great" Her character: Granddaughter of Omri, one of Israel's most idolatrous and evil kings, she was the daughter of Ahab and most likely of Jezebel as well. She was the only woman to rule over Judah. While Ahab and Jezebel spread Baal worship in the northern kingdom of Israel , Athaliah was busy promoting it a few years later in the southern kingdom of Judah . Controlled by her need for power, she murdered her own family members to secure it. Her sorrow: That her attempt to destroy the royal line of Judah failed. Her joy: That her ruthlessness paid off, at least for a time, making her the ruler of Judah. Key Scriptures: 2 Kings 11 ; 2 Chronicles 22 ; 23:11-21 JEHOSHEBA Her name means: "The Lord Is Great" Her character: A princess and the wife of the high priest, she was a courageous woman whose actions preserved the line of Ju...

English: ELIYAH VISITS KING AHAB AND THE BA'AL PROPHETS 1 MELAKIM 21 KINGS (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “ Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.” ( James 5:17-18 ) “Elias” is the New Testament name for Elijah, the great prophet who lived during the darkest days of Israel ’s apostasy, when Ahab and Jezebel ruled the land and had turned it over to the worship of the demonic god Baal . “Elijah” means “Jehovah is God,” a most appropriate name for a prophet of the true God in a nation and time given over to paganism. Elijah suddenly appeared before King Ahab with the ominous prophecy: “As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word” ( 1 Kings 17:1 ). This was not presumptuous. In h...

English: ELIYAH VISITS KING AHAB AND THE BA'AL PROPHETS 1 MELAKIM 21 KINGS (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The false god of limitless choices, like those at a coffee shops, is enslaving Christians. Would you prefer to make an ironclad, no-turning-back choice, or one you could back out of if need be?  Do you ever find that you're afraid to commit? Do you reply to party invitations with a ''maybe'' rather than a ''yes'' or ''no''? Do you like to keep your smartphone switched on at all times, even in meetings, so that you are never fully present at any given moment? Will you focus on the person you're talking to after a church service, or will you look over her shoulder for a better conversation partner? If so, you may be worshiping the god of open options 1 Kings 18:21 describes a crucial moment of decision. It's the final showdown between the God of Israel and a false god called Baal. Elijah calls God 's people to c...

Map showing the Kingdoms of Israel (blue) and Judah (orange), ancient levant borders and ancient cities such as Urmomium and Jerash. The map shows the region in the 9th century BCE. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God , follow Him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people said nothing ( 1 Kings 18:21). When God set up the kingdom in Israel , He made a condition for the kings: They were always to hearken to the words of the prophets , the emissaries of the true High King of Israel. In a more general way, the prophets were also the ambassadors of God to the people. God always gave the people the kind of king they deserved, so that if there was to be reformation in the land, the people, as well as the king, had to repent. When the kings of Israel and Judah were unfaithful, it was a reflection on the moral condition of the people. The kingdom of northern Israel was separated fr...

Image via Wikipedia A question we hear often is, “Does it really matter what I believe as long as I believe in something?” Or, “As long as your belief helps you, isn’t that all that matters?”  The idea behind statements such as these is that there is no absolute truth to believe in, and thus the act of believing is all there is. We all believe in something, as Edgar Sheffield Brightman states, “A thinker cannot divest himself of real convictions, and it is futile to pose as having none” (E.S. Brightman in H.N. Wieman, B.E. Meland (eds.), American Philosophies of Religion, New York, Harper & Brothers, 1936).  The idea of finding any truth or meaning to life has escaped modern man. This statement reflects the inability to conceive of something outside of one’s self: “There are no rules by means of which we would discover a purpose or a meaning of the universe” ( Hans Reichenbach , The Rise of Scientific Philosophy, p. 301).  Even though we live in a day in which we...