Dr Paul Allen

What is a temple? A religious building, yes. But specifically, a temple is a place where humans meet with God. Even more specifically than that, it is where impure humanity meets with pure divinity. It is where the divine and the human, otherwise alienated from one another, meet; where the sacred and the profane intersect once more. All of humanity knows itself to somehow be outside. A temple is where, briefly, we can be brought back in. In the Old Testament, the divine and the human mingled in a physical building, where, with strictly limited access, we could fellowship with the holy God. In the New Testament, the divine and the human mingled in a physical body, where, with unlimited access, we could fellowship with the holy God. And while the Old Testament temple kept out the unclean, weak, and defiled, the New Testament temple embraced the unclean, weak, and defiled. Eden after the fall, Noah’s ark, the tabernacle, Solomon’s temple, the second temple—they all had walls. Access denie...

Jarvis Williams 1 Peter 3:19 presents scholars with multiple interpretive challenges. [1] Space constraints prevent me from critically engaging with the complicated reflections upon the verse in the history of interpretation. Instead, I simply attempt to answer some of the basics of the who, what, how, and when questions presented by v. 19. Who or what are the spirits to whom Jesus preached? What did Jesus preach? What does Peter mean by preaching? How did Jesus preach, and when did Jesus preach? My thesis is Peter suggests Jesus preached a sermon of defeat (what) by means of his death, resurrection, and exaltation/ascension (how and when) to all the rebellious angels in Gen 6:1–8 (who). I support this thesis with a succinct exegesis of v. 19. 1 Pet 3:19 in Context Peter wrote to Christians in the diaspora to encourage them to keep being faithful to Christ while suffering for their faith in Christ and/or while suffering as Christians (1:1–2, 6–7; 1:13–2:25; 3:13–5:19). 3:19 connects w...

“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.” (Deut. 30:19–20). Moses’s logic here is breathtaking. May the Lord help us feel and respond appropriately to these truths. First, spiritual life does not happen on its own (see John 3:36; Eph. 2:1–3). We must choose life. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus notes, “For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matt. 7:13–14).  Impurity, dishonesty, selfishness, arrogance, laziness, rash responses, and the like— these characterise the...

The reign of Christ represents the ultimate standard of truth, justice, and righteousness. However, throughout history, various ideologies, practices, and worldviews have emerged as counterfeits of His rule. These counterfeits often appear to address societal needs but ultimately deviate from biblical truth, undermining God’s design for humanity and creation. Below are 10 prominent counterfeits of the reign of Christ, structured to highlight their biblical contradictions and societal implications. Socialism vs. Meritocracy Based on Sowing and Reaping The Bible affirms the principle of sowing and reaping, as outlined in Galatians 6:7: “A man reaps what he sows.” This principle underpins a meritocratic system where individuals are rewarded for their labor, diligence, and stewardship. Socialism, by contrast, redistributes resources irrespective of effort, undermining personal responsibility and the biblical work ethic. While Scripture calls for generosity and care for the poor, these are ...

Your darkness can one day bring someone light. A person who’s been through a divorce has the compassion and words needed to help somebody going through a divorce. A person who’s been through abuse, rape, or an addiction can genuinely understand how to help someone else in a similar situation.  And because you made it, God will cause your wounds to glow in the dark of somebody else’s life. And when you begin to share your story with them, hope will get in their soul, and they will start to believe that they can make it.   Don’t waste what you’ve gone through or allow it to make you bitter. If God lets you walk through it, it’s because He’s still God and has a plan. On five different occasions, the Apostle Paul was beaten with 39 stripes. That’s 195 scars on his body. Paul said, “Three times I was beaten with rods.  One time, I was stoned and left for dead. Three times, I suffered shipwrecks. I knew what it was to be afloat in the ocean a full day and night. I thought ...

Those who reject Christ's claims will reject the Bible as a whole, so we are not surprised when we find non-Christians questioning the stories and teachings of Scripture. We are living in a funny age, however, when even many professing Christians want to cast the Bible in a negative light.  It is not uncommon for people who claim to be followers of Christ to question God's character or reject the truthfulness of entire portions of Scripture because they believe specific biblical stories and events contradict God’s mercy.  The invasion of Canaan is one of those stories that prompts many people, including many professing Christians, to question the Scriptures. Charges that “God commanded genocide” are frequently uttered.  Even after responding to the charge of genocide, however, we still need to consider how the story fits into the broader biblical revelation of the character of God.  THE PROBLEM IS US When we encounter something that troubles us in Scripture, we are t...

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 j...

Nick Batzig Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is one of the most ancient and revered military manuals in all of human history. In it, Sun Tzu set out what he believed to be the “essentials of military victory.” He wrote: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”1 Many of the seventeenth-century Puritans also emphasized the importance of knowing the enemy and his tactics when they approached the subject of spiritual warfare. For instance, in his Precious Remedies against Satan’s Devices, Thomas Brooks highlighted “the essentials” of spiritual warfare: “Christ, the Scripture, your own hearts, and Satan’s devices, are the four prime things that should be first and most studied and searched. If any cast off the study of these, they cannot be safe here, nor happy hereafter.”2 I...

Dr Paul Twiss Christ is the Savior, and He is the Teacher. Jesus instructs me. He teaches me how to think, how to speak, and how to walk every day. When I reflect on His Word, my affection for Him grows. In part, this love is the reflex of my soul, as I see that Jesus’ Word is good. He is the Shepherd, who leads me in paths of righteousness. Christ’s instructions awaken my affections because through them I see His supremacy. I see how He reigns over all creation, and how all things hold together in Him (Col. 1:17).  As an image bearer, I was made to behold this glory. My soul longs to look upon Christ and the unity of the cosmos according to His kingship. His teaching is a roadmap towards such beauty. Thus, as God’s Word instructs me, I love Jesus the Teacher. UNDERSTANDING THE SKILL OF LEARNING Some of my favourite memories include my greatest teachers. I am indebted to these people. Interestingly, I do not always find the same affection when I think about other figures in my chil...

Confused about this topic? In general, I do think we should do the best for the church about the second coming when we don’t focus on distortions and misconceptions but instead on the truth and the beauty of what it really is in the Bible. And yet, it’s right, now and then, to make our people understand there are misconceptions and errors. Five Misconceptions Frankly, I’m really happy that my book is viewed as mainly proactive and positive rather than critical. But of course, even that positive view can be overstated. Suppose we never focus on what’s wrong and show how harmful it is. In that case, we won’t really be biblical because the biblical witness itself describes errors and their harmfulness — like Jesus did with the scribes and Pharisees or like Paul in exposing errors of false teaching in Colossians and other places. So yes, I will point out some misconceptions about the second coming. Let’s just take them one at a time, and I’ll try to explain why I think they’re a problem. 1...

Do you know God? Do you have the assurance that you have eternal life? Knowing that we know God is paramount because salvation ultimately can be boiled down to this one thing: knowing God. In John 17, Jesus, before going to the cross, was praying to the Father for His disciples – both those present at that time and those who would believe in future generations through the preaching of the apostolic word of the gospel. In verse 3, Jesus defines eternal life for us, praying,  “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” “Eternal life” is a phrase used forty-one times in the New Testament. And in John 17, we see what it means: to know God the Father and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Eternal life is not merely to live forever and never die. It includes that, of course, by definition. But eternal life is not simply an eternal existence of isolation or independence. It is eternal life in a relationship with God. It is a life th...