Dr Paul Allen

Unbelievers love to bring forth unreasonable commands from the Bible to prove that it’s wrong. Leviticus 19:19 is one of their favourites: “You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind. You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor shall you wear a garment of cloth made of two kinds of material. Now, that certainly seems odd, doesn’t it? But Jonathan Morrow explains it all clearly enough in Think Christianly . On page 166, he quotes Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart: These and other prohibitions were designed to forbid the Israelites from engaging in the fertility cult practices of the Canaanites. The Canaanites believed in sympathetic magic, the idea that symbolic actions can influence the gods and nature…. Mixing animal breeds, seeds, or materials was thought to “marry” them” so as magically to produce “offspring,” that is, agricultural bounty in the future. I had never heard that before. Had you? Naturally, I wondered whether it was s...

Ancient to-do lists dating back 2600 years to the seventh century BC cast doubt on the widely-held secular belief that the Hebrew Bible (selected parts of the Old Testament ) was compiled after the Israelites were exiled to Babylon in 587BC. The contents of the lists themselves – written by up to six different individuals and discovered in Ted Arad in the Negev Desert (near the Dead Sea) – are, well, kind of weird. “And now, give the Kittiyim 3 baths of wine.” “And a full homer of wine, bring tomorrow; don’t be late. And if there is vinegar, give it to them.” “And Hananyahu has commanded you to Beersheba with 2 donkeys’ load and you shall wrap up the dough with them.” But according to researchers at Tel Aviv University , they show a level of literacy amongst seventh century Judeans which is higher than previously thought. It therefore, raises the possibility that the Hebrew Bible was collated earlier than the Babylonian exile. Alan Millard , an evangelical scholar and emerit...

“Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” ( Psalm 85:10 ) The words “mercy” ( Hebrew checed, also often translated by “kindness” or “lovingkindness”) and “truth” (Hebrew emeth) occur more often in the psalms than in any other book. In fact, “mercy” occurs more in the psalms than in all the rest of the Old Testament put together. Though at first these two concepts seem opposed to each other (for how can God ’s truth, which abhors sin, be compatible with His mercy, which forgives sin?), nevertheless they are “met together,” for “his salvation,” according to the previous verse, “is nigh them that fear him” (v. 9). “Mercy and truth” (or “lovingkindness and truth”) are brought together at least 16 times in the Old Testament, including 10 times in the psalms. And when God’s eternal truth can be united with His loving mercy, both mediated through His Holy Word, there is great blessing indeed! “All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth unto...

Molnár József: Ábrahám kiköltözése (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) "And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son" (Gen. 22:13). Like an old-fashioned grammar text, the Bible is a book in which many of the answers to questions posed early on are to be found in the back of the book. Take the idea that Jesus died for me. We sing Cecil Frances Alexander 's words: We may not know, we cannot tell What pains he had to bear; But we believe it was for us He hung and suffered there. And we sing these words because they reflect something we find to be deeply embedded within Scripture. Substitution is the word we have come to employ for this even though, like Trinity , it is not a biblical word. But it is a word that summarizes what we find in the Bible from the very start: that sin is atoned for by the sacrifice of another. Sinners in the Old Testament came and offered sacrifices, symbolically laying their hands on the victim's hea...

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Trust in God ; trust also in me.” (John 14:1) Few words in the Bible are better known or more often quoted than these, but for all their timelessness, they were addressed to a very specific situation. The demeanour and language of Jesus had filled his disciples with foreboding. He was going to leave them, and that itself would reduce their world to rubble. But they would also have to cope with the manner of his departure. They would see him betrayed by one of their own, arrested, and condemned to a death that would not only wrench him from them, but would cover his name with ignominy and bury all their hopes. What is before the Lord’s mind here, then, is not how he himself would cope with the cross, but how his confused and bewildered disciples would cope. It is the trouble in their minds that troubles him, and he addresses it not only with soothing words, but with powerful arguments — arguments they must remember when they see him hanging on ...

Our Lord Jesus Christ (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I say, “Help comes from God .” I tell people, “You’re not alone.” Both are empty phrases if I don’t live like I believe them. The book of Numbers shows us that as the Israelites traveled through the wilderness, they, too, struggled to live out these words. After 40 years of wandering, they were likely wondering if God had fallen asleep on the job. The author of Psalm 121 spotted this problem. The ancients believed the gods dwelt on the mountains, but the psalmist says otherwise: “I raise my eyes toward the mountains. Where will my help come from? My help comes from the LORD , the Maker of heaven and earth” ( HCSB ). God doesn’t sleep . In contrast to the belief that gods drifted into the underworld, and consequently awful things happened, the psalmist explains that God is always present: “He will not allow your foot to slip … the Protector of Israel does not slumber or sleep.” We think we are different than the ancients, but we,...

‎Overlaid with pure gold, the table was first created to be used in the Tabernacle to hold the Bread of the Presence , also referred to as the Showbread. An important piece of furniture recreated for use in Solomon’s temple and again for the second temple , the Table of the Showbread may have been one of the Jewish treasures lost to the Romans during the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD .  BREAD OF THE PRESENCE (לחם הפנים, lchm hpnym). Twelve loaves of bread arranged in two stacks of six on the Table of the Showbread. The Table of the Showbread was located in the holy place of the tabernacle and temple. Near Yahweh ’s presence. Biblical Relevance The bread of the presence accompanied the “table of the presence” (שׁלחן הפנים, shlchn hpnym; Num 4:7), which were located in the holy place of Israel ’s central sanctuary (1 Sam 21:1–6; 1 Kgs 7:48; 1 Chr 9:32; 2 Chr 2:4; Neh 10:33). The Table of the Showbread appeared behind the veil above the mercy seat (Exod 25:22). The ...

English: High priest offering a sacrifice of a goat, as on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur; from Henry Davenport Northrop, "Treasures of the Bible," published 1894 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The Book of Leviticus is the heart and center of the Pentateuch. The theological heart of Leviticus—and, therefore, also of the Five Books of Moses —is the Day of Atonement (Lev 16). On this most sacred day, the high priest of Israel would bring the blood of sacrifice into the holy of holies to cleanse both the tabernacle dwelling of God and the camp of Israel . Ultimately, every other sacrifice and ritual in Israel's cult derived its meaning and significance from this annual entrance into the earthly throne room of God. Worship in ancient Israel was through the chosen and anointed mediator, the high priest. Significantly, then, in the Pentateuch "messiah" refers exclusively to Aaron the high priest—he is the one anointed with oil, whose mediation allows God...

Christ Carrying the Cross (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God , and there is none else." ( Isaiah 45:22 ) Ever since sin entered into God's created world, His message to all people of all ages has been the same.  At the time of the curse, God prophesied that there soon would be a coming Redeemer --the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent, although the Redeemer Himself would be made to suffer in order to do away with the effects of sin ( Genesis 3:15 ).  "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul" ( Leviticus 17:11 ). God repeatedly warned the people of His hatred of sin and wickedness (see, for example,  Psalm 5:4-6 ;  Proverbs 6:16-19 ), but He recognized that humankind was totally incapable of measuring up to His standar...

The Scapegoat by William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) No book in the Old Testament presents a greater challenge to the modern reader than Leviticus , and imagination is required to picture the ceremonies and rites that form the bulk of the book. However, it is important to try to understand the rituals in Leviticus for two reasons. First, rituals enshrine, express, and teach those values and ideas that a society holds most dear. By analyzing the ceremonies described in Leviticus, we can learn about what was most important to the Old Testament Israelites. Second, these same ideas are foundational for the New Testament writers. Particularly the concepts of sin, sacrifice, and atonement found in Leviticus are used in the New Testament to interpret the death of Christ. The God of Leviticus, whose essential character is shown to be holy life, is shown in the Gospels to be present in Christ and His redemptive work. Precisely because the rituals of Leviticus a...