Dr Paul Allen

English: Domitian Denarius (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Someday, we will be like Him. That's our hope. But it's not a hope that we put on the shelf, and it's not a hope that sends us into a cave. It's a hope that sends us into the world with confidence.  We can be confident in God, confident in His Word, confident in Christ , confident in the gospel, and confident in hope. In the AD 90s, Domitian ruled as emperor over Rome . His cruelty rivaled that of Nero. He insisted that he be worshiped as a god. Christians, of course, could not participate in the rituals of this emperor cult. That left them vulnerable, and that vulnerability led to persecution. It is likely that John's exile to the island of Patmos directly resulted from Domitian's edicts. John refused to bow. John wrote Revelation during this time, many scholars believe. Also around this time, an early church figure named Clement, serving as bishop at Rome, sent a letter to the church at Corinth. C...

English: Saint Polycarp (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Philippians 2:5–11 “So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord , to the glory of God the Father” (vv. 10–11). At age eighty-six, Polycarp , the second-century bishop of Smyrna and disciple of the apostle John, was brought to the Roman authorities and ordered to confess that Caesar is lord. Though doing so would have saved his life, Polycarp refused and was murdered, inspiring others to remain faithful. Considered apart from Polycarp’s story, it was not unusual to refer to Caesar as kurios, the Greek term for “lord.” In the original Greek, kurios can mean simply “sir” as a polite and slightly exalted way of referring to another human being. Or, it can refer to a master of many slaves or servants. However, neither of these meanings were in mind when Rome applied the title kurios to the emperor. Instead, kurios signified divinity when used of...

English: Modern bronze statue of Julius Caesar, Rimini, Italy. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God , and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves (Rom. 13:2). “Must Caesar always be obeyed?” Paul argues that such submission is appropriate for everyone, but especially for Christians , because all human authorities are established by God, and to disobey them is, at least in a sense, to rebel against God and risk His judgment. However, we are all aware that power tends to corrupt, so that the men and women who form our governments sometimes act in very ungodly ways. What then? Are there no conditions under which rebellion against the existing authority is justified? Or demanded? Suppose the state is tyrannical. Suppose it is violating human rights . And what about obedience itself? Must obedience be absolute, or are there limits? Can we obey in some areas and not others?” These are not easy questions to answer. P...

Christ and The Pharisees (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) It may well be in the calculus of evil that the only character faring worse than a Nazi is the Pharisee . These were the original black hats. In each of the gospel accounts they are the no-accounts, the very foil of Jesus Himself. We, because we are sinners just like them, ascribe to the Pharisees every conceivable sin that we think ourselves not guilty of. We may have to confess to this sin or that, but at least, we tell ourselves, we aren’t like those guys. In our scapegoating narrative we think that when Jesus showed up the Pharisees hated Him for the simple reason that He was good and they evil. He walked down the street, and they hissed and sputtered. He healed a puppy and they kicked it. The truth is that the Pharisees did hate Jesus, and He rightly isn’t known for showing them a great deal of grace. He called them out for their hypocrisy. He exposed their inner tombs. But the hatred they felt for Him wasn’t mere sour gra...