Dr Paul Allen

Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: And they that love it shall eat its fruit.” I want to illustrate the story of King Ahab to show the importance of declaring victory over your life. This king of Israel had agreed to let the enemy come in and take some of his belongings.  But when the adversary demanded even more, King Ahab said, “Tell my lord the king, ‘Your servant will do all you demanded the first time, but this demand I cannot meet.’” Something snapped in Ahab, and he decided at that moment that he had given up all that he was going to give up. The enemy will never be satisfied.  There needs to come a time when you decide to stop letting negative thoughts and words control your life. Satan’s goal is to kill, steal, and destroy you and your family, but if you can change the narrative, you can change the outcome.  Victory has a voice. Don’t let the enemy, circumstances, the world, or other people’s opinions control the narrative of your life. You ma

There are more significant questions beneath this question, making this an essential issue to many. As we move toward an answer, here are three pivotal concerns behind the question that can help us understand why this gnaws at many people’s hearts. 1. What do we mean when we talk about heaven? Generally, when people think about heaven, they refer to what theologians more appropriately call “the intermediate state.” When a believer in Christ dies, their soul leaves the earth, and they go into the presence of Jesus until the second coming of Christ. Here, we are liberated from physical pain, sin, the presence of evil, and all effects of the fall. We shall see the face of Jesus and experience unfettered communion with him. We will be, ideally, euphorically and eternally happy. The intermediate state, though, is temporary. At the second coming of Christ, we will descend with Jesus to the earth, where heaven will become a place on earth. At that point, the resurrection of the dead will occu

How Not to Fight Sin Fighting sin is spiritual warfare, and warfare requires a battle plan. If left to our own devices, we would have little success against our unseen enemy. Thankfully, God’s word supplies wisdom to assist us in eluding the evil one’s snares. We’ll begin by briefly considering how not to engage in the battle, followed by practical tactics to flee sin and follow God. Don’t Fight Sin by Ignoring It Pretending sin isn’t there won’t help you fight it, as with Ben. Ben was a jokester, but at times, his jesting became inappropriate. He turned innocent comments into crude remarks and occasionally used off-colour language to get a laugh. When conviction came, he rationalized it away. He’d think, “I didn’t really mean it. It’s not who I really am. It’s not that big of a deal. I’m free in Christ.” An unwillingness to admit sin prevents you from repenting of it. Don’t Fight Sin by Entertaining It We also can’t fight by entertaining sin, as with Jess. Jess struggled with body ima

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (Eph. 2:6) We can all recall a time when we had a seating assignment.  In schooling, at work, or around the dinner table, a particular chair may be your seat. We tend to size up the quality of our assigned seats by factors such as visibility, the ambience, and, above all, the surrounding company. If we’re off to a concert or sporting event, our first question may be, “Do we have good seats?” We intuitively recognize that where we sit and (more importantly) whom it is that we sit next to play no small role in our experience. Thus, as Christians, we do well to pause and ask the question, “Do we have good seats?” Christians possess the most awesome of all assigned seats. How so? In this Ephesian passage, Paul has just

Orthodoxy means the right doctrine or belief. In one essential sense, it is critical to salvation. Although we are saved entirely by the grace of God, not based on the correctness of our thinking, the right views of God promote wonder, reverence, and love. Moreover, for future generations to believe in Christ, we must guard the gospel, without which no one can be saved (2 Tim. 1:14).  Hosea bemoaned the fact that “my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hos. 4:6). Israel’s idolatry had affected its whole national existence. False worship bred sinful practice. God is faithful; allegiance to him requires attention to what is true and right. Ideas have consequences.  Truth is healthy for both body and soul (1 Tim. 6:3). Worship is to be in truth, which is embodied in Jesus Christ (John 4:21–24; cf. John 1:9, 14, 17–18; John 14:6). True biblical orthodoxy leads to orthopraxy (right practice), which should promote healthy living and relationships. Not All Orthodox Doctrine Is of the

Christians need clarification and encouragement. When things are difficult, asking why they are so hard is easy. There may or may not be specific answers to this question, yet the Scriptures remind us that the people of God have, in every season, faced opposition—yet not without purpose. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in his commentary on Acts 6, said: The Church has had to fight for her life from the very beginning. We have seen how the apostles were arrested and thrown into prison, how they were threatened, and how they were commanded to stop preaching. From the moment it was born, the church has faced a world that has done everything it could to exterminate Christianity. Although this tempts us to be more anxious than anchored, it reminds us that what we face is not entirely unprecedented. It also causes us to look to the early church to see how they faced difficult circumstances and remained faithful. The life of Stephen, in particular, can help us understand how we are to live. Stephen wa

When you have children, one of the things you find yourself doing is singing a lot of the songs you used to sing in Sunday school and at church when you were a kid. There is one that has been particularly favoured by my kids in recent days: “Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho.” Perhaps you remember the song’s chorus: Joshua fought the Battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho. Joshua fought the Battle of Jericho, And the walls came tumbling down! The song is a lot of fun for our kids, as it gives them an excuse to march around the living room and simulate the fall of Jericho’s walls with hand motions. It is also a good way to impress on their young minds the basic truths of one of the most famous stories in the Old Testament. In fact, I would venture to say that most children who spend any length of time in a church’s educational programs will hear the story of Joshua and Jericho several times over. TELLING THE WHOLE STORY As I think back on my time as a child in Sunday school, I know that

The survey revealed that these prayers for judgment, which are also called “imprecations,” are not isolated to the Psalter but found throughout the Bible, even on the lips of Jesus himself. It seems, then, given the somewhat frequent appearance of imprecation throughout Scripture with positive portrayals, and the commands to sing the psalms in Paul’s letters to New Covenant churches, that there is at least some expectation that Christians would be praying for God’s justice today. My guess, however, is that most of us haven’t heard imprecatory prayers uttered in the church. Usually, the reasoning goes something like, “That’s not how Jesus taught us to pray,” or “Aren’t we supposed to pray for our enemies, not against them?” Or, perhaps you’ve heard, “That was just an Old Testament thing, but we pray differently now.” These are understandable objections, to be sure. To answer these and other objections, and assert that imprecation is indeed appropriate for Christians today, I’ve grouped

NT Wright says the rapture is a colourful misunderstood metaphor written by Paul. The rapture is an eschatological event in which Christians purportedly will rise into the sky to join Christ as he returns to earth. The word “rapture” is derived from the Latin translation of 1 Thessalonians 4:17. English translations translate the keyword in that verse with “caught up” or “snatched up.” There are several views among Christians about the exact nature and timing of this rapture, this “snatching up,” primarily due to its relationship to other eschatological events in Scripture. The rapture doctrine is employed perhaps the most sophisticatedly in premillennialism. For premillennialists, the rapture occurs in conjunction with the “great tribulation” (Dan 9:24–27; Matt 24:21, 29; Rev 7:14). Premillennialists agree that the rapture is connected to the resurrection of believers before the millennial (thousand-year) reign of Christ.  Premillennialists differ, however, on when the rapture will oc

  The Image of God – Genesis 1:27   The image of God refers to the idea in monotheistic religions, particularly Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God. This concept is based on the creation account in the Bible's book of Genesis, where God is said to have created humanity in his image. The exact meaning of this image is debated among theologians and scholars. Still, it generally refers to the idea that human beings possess certain qualities or characteristics that reflect God's nature, such as intellect, morality, and free will. It is also believed that the image of God was tarnished by the fall of man in the Garden of Eden but can be restored through salvation or redemption.     The Fall – Genesis 3:6   The fall is a concept in the Bible that refers to the event in the book of Genesis where Adam and Eve disobeyed God's command not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. As a result of their dis