Dr Paul Allen

We live in a culture that is quick. We want to become mature Christians in five easy lessons. We want to become saints by fifteen minutes a day. We want to have flat stomachs and strong abs by three workouts a week. That may work over a given period of time for your abs, but it's not going to work for your soul. Attending the school of God takes time and labor and energy and deeply committing oneself to prayer, to the study of Scripture, to fellowship with other believers, to ministry within the life of the church. We need to listen to Paul: "When I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror , dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13:11-13). Paul was the most mature Christian alive in the world in his day, a man who had the equivalent of two doctorates in theology by the time he was twenty-one

Ministry of the Apostles, a complex multi-figure icon with a full-height image of Jesus Christ, surrounded by sectors with scenes of His disciples' calling, ministry and martyrdom. Icon from the Yaroslavl Museum Preserve. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Three days after the crucifixion, Jesus rose from the grave. In the weeks that followed, He appeared to His disciples on numerous occasions, explaining to them why His death had been necessary as the Savior of the world . The Lord interacted with His followers for forty days after His resurrection, appearing to as many as five hundred at one time. The resulting anticipation was high because the hope that had died on the cross had risen again — there was no longer any room for doubt. Nearly six weeks later, Christ assembled His disciples on the Mount of Olives for one last lesson. As they gathered around Him, He instructed them, “You shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem , and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest p

Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–211/216). (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) It’s not uncommon to hear that the celebration of Christmas is rooted in ancient Roman paganism . That claim generally goes something like this: the ancient Romans celebrated a pagan festival on December 25th, but when the Roman Empire was Christianized in the 300s, the church simply turned the pagan festival into a Christian holiday . It is true that there was a pagan Roman holiday named Saturnalia that marked the winter solstice. And in the old Julian calendar , the winter solstice occurred on December 25. Saturnalia became an official Roman holiday in 274 under the reign of Emperor Aurelian . And the Roman empire was Christianized about fifty years later under Constantine. It doesn’t take too much imagination to see how some could assume that the post-Constantine Romans simply adopted the pagan holiday and Christianized it. But there’s actually good evidence to suggest that the date of December 25 does not ha