Dr Paul Allen

By Michael Brown Have you ever heard the claim that David and Jonathan, of biblical fame, were “gay lovers”? This is a blatant falsehood, as numerous Bible scholars have demonstrated over the years. After all, the biblical text is quite clear. Jonathan became a married man with children. And, much more significantly, David married numerous women, almost destroying his whole life because he lusted for a married woman named Bathsheba. He committed adultery with her, got her pregnant, and then killed her husband (see 2 Samuel 11). This is not what gay men do! Other biblical scholars have pointed out that the whole testimony of the Hebrew Bible is exclusively heterosexual — meaning, only heterosexual relationships are countenanced, let alone blessed — while any references to homosexual behaviour are highly harmful. This Bible would not paint an openly gay picture of one of its heroes. But of course!  Obviously, all this public kissing was not in the least bit sexual! That’s why there a...

As David looked out to the battlefield, there stood Goliath of Gath, the Philistine giant, defying Israel’s God. In David’s hands were a few small stones. Did anyone believe this shepherd boy could stand against a warrior like Goliath? As David walked onto the battlefield, he responded to Goliath with words meant to reassure Israel that they had a better champion than the Philistines. Did anyone believe these words? And who was the identity of this champion? The Lord God of Israel. All the assembly today will know, David said, that “the battle is the Lord’s” (1 Sam. 17:47). Israel needed to learn a profound lesson. They were absolutely helpless before Goliath. The lesson was never to be missed: You can’t win this battle, so the Lord must fight and win for you. Sadly, many Christians still haven’t learned this lesson. The most common interpretation of this passage places the responsibility squarely on us to slay the Goliaths in our lives. Some of the best-selling Christian books today p...

I’ve been thinking about you,” we say to people we care about. Our minds naturally gravitate toward those we love, especially when they are in need. We want them to know that they are not forgotten, they are not alone, and we are praying for them. Even atheists, who have no faith in God and no belief in prayer, when times are tight, will speak of sending positive thoughts your way. In Psalm 139, David says, in effect, “God has been thinking of you.” In fact, you are never out of His mind. For some, such a concept fills them with dread. Christopher Hitchens, the well-known atheist, for example, once confessed: I think it would be rather awful if God existed. . . . If there was a permanent, total, round-the-clock divine supervision and invigilation of everything you did, you would never have a waking or sleeping moment when you weren’t being watched and controlled and supervised by some celestial entity from the moment of your conception to the moment of your death. . . . It would be lik...

Bathsheba was ‘raped’ by King David — a violation that went against her will. Most Bible scholars, leave this situation vaguer and simply say David committed adultery with her, leaving her volition ambiguous, maybe even suggesting that she was a willing participant in the sin.  Is there any evidence in the Bible of whether Bathsheba was willing or unwilling?   David's power as a male king over her, a subject, would immediately classify this as a rape, even if she put up no resistance. Are there any pointers for us in the text itself?” There are pointers that David exerted a kind of pressure on her to warrant the accusation of rape. The act couldn’t be consensual given the power dynamics at play. It is possible for a woman to be sinfully complicit in committing adultery with a very powerful man. There is no evidence for that in this text. He Took Her There are two indications that David threw his weight around — threw his power, his influence, his position — in such a way as t...

Dear Wife , Cleave is a strange word. It’s a contranym — a word that can have opposite meanings. In an upper story of a concrete apartment block in a small Chinese city , I watched Rene wield her cleaver like a top chef, preparing vegetables for her family’s dinner. I was impressed how she positioned her fingers so they didn’t get chopped with the carrots. “Wow! I want some of those knives to take home as gifts,” I said. Rene pointed out the window toward a shop across the busy street. “You should be able to find them there.” The name of one brand was Family Cleaver. It was easy to see how the difficulty of grasping a double meaning in English must have tripped up a Chinese translator. I was glad to discover a different brand with a happier name (that wouldn’t have implications of splitting a family apart). On the opposite side of the word, there’s the other meaning of cleave, as it’s used in a time-honored wedding text: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, a...

All of the authors of the books of the Old Testament should be classified as prophets. That term refers to messengers, and that is exactly what these authors were doing—delivering the message of God to the people of God. Some books specifically name the author, other books imply or point to a person as the author, and still other books are anonymous. One of the most important issues of authorship regards the Pentateuch , the first five books of the Old Testament. The traditional view is that Moses is the author of these books. This has been held by Jews since the Pentateuch was written and by Christians since the first century.  Even though the Pentateuch itself does not directly state that Moses is the author, there is evidence that indicates this is the case. For example, Moses did receive many of the laws recorded in these books directly from God on Mount Sinai (Exodus 19ff.). Also, several books begin with the statement that God spoke to Moses and that Moses was to pass...

“Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O LORD, in the light of thy countenance.” ( Psalm 89:15 )   Many have been the Christians who have joined in singing “We have heard the joyful sound: Jesus saves; Jesus saves!” Not all have known, however, that this beautiful phrase comes from a great psalm extolling God ’s marvelous works of creation and then His promises of redemption.   “The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: as for the world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them. The north and the south thou hast created them” ( Psalm 89:11-12 ). Earlier verses note that “the heavens shall praise thy wonders, O LORD” (v. 5), speaking of the angels, “the sons of the mighty” (v. 6), literally, “the sons of God .” It is exciting to realize that the very first “joyful sound” was heard when God “laid the foundations of the earth.” Then it was that “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” ( Job 38:...

Second Corinthians 7 teaches that not all tears of remorse flow from a truly repentant heart. Some cry because they were caught, and others cry because they offended God . Those two groups do not necessarily overlap. In God’s providence there are a few examples given to us in Scripture that juxtapose these two types of repentance. The most obvious is Saul vs. David. Saul and David both sinned , were confronted by a prophet, and then acknowledged their sin. In fact, they both use almost the same words: “I have sinned against Yahweh ” ( 1 Samuel 15:24; 2 Samuel 12:13). But the narratives make clear that Saul’s “repentance” was superficial, while David’s was supernatural. The prophet did not extend forgiveness to Saul, while he did to David. Saul was concerned about what others thought, while David was concerned only with what Yahweh thought. And there are probably six or seven other contrasts as well. A similar (but less known) juxtaposition is found in 2 Samuel 19. In that narr...

Second Corinthians 7 teaches that not all tears of remorse flow from a truly repentant heart. Some cry because they were caught, and others cry because they offended God . Those two groups do not necessarily overlap. In God’s providence there are a few examples given to us in Scripture that juxtapose these two types of repentance. The most obvious is Saul vs. David. Saul and David both sinned , were confronted by a prophet, and then acknowledged their sin. In fact, they both use almost the same words: “I have sinned against Yahweh ” ( 1 Samuel 15:24; 2 Samuel 12:13). But the narratives make clear that Saul’s “repentance” was superficial, while David’s was supernatural. The prophet did not extend forgiveness to Saul, while he did to David. Saul was concerned about what others thought, while David was concerned only with what Yahweh thought. And there are probably six or seven other contrasts as well. A similar (but less known) juxtaposition is found in 2 Samuel 19. In that narr...

“Let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hand of the wicked remove me.” ( Psalm 36:11 ) The contrast in this psalm is not only between good and evil , but more specifically between the prideful man who lives without fear of God and the God in whom godly men trust. The description of the evil man (vv. 1-4) is an apt description of a modern-day humanist. He is convinced that God, if He exists, does not intervene in the affairs of men. He therefore sets himself up as an authority, deciding right and wrong on his own arbitrary scale. He has “no fear of God” (v. 1), and arrogantly he “flattereth himself in his own eyes” (v. 2), speaking “iniquity and deceit” (v. 3). He is foolish, and even his humanitarian deeds are not good, in the ultimate sense. Furthermore, the modern-day humanist “abhorreth not evil” (v. 4), insisting that such sins as promiscuity, homosexuality, witchcraft, abortion, brainwashing of children in pantheistic evolution, etc., are, in reality, to be...

Wait a minute. The Bible needed an upgrade ? Those sound like fighting words to anyone with a high view of Scripture. An upgrade implies that something needed updating, but the Bible is timeless! That’s true, but in this case I would have to excuse myself from the ring. I wouldn’t want to tangle with those responsible for the improvements: the biblical writers and, well, the Spirit of God. Believe it or not, there is evidence that the Bible was updated.1 That may sound strange, but if you read closely, it’s undeniable. Take Genesis 14:14 as an illustration: When Abram heard that his kinsman had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men … and went in pursuit as far as Dan . Did you notice the problem ? This is the time of Abram, a time before Moses and Joshua—before there was a promised land divided among the tribes of Israel . There wasn’t even an Israel yet. So what’s up with the reference to the land that belonged to the tribe of Dan ? If we plotted out the battle bet...

The Penance of David, Psalm 51 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.” ( Proverbs 30:5 ) When the inspired writer of Proverbs testified here that God’s Word was “pure,” he did not use the usual word for, say, moral purity or metallic purity. Instead, he asserted in effect that every word of God had been refined and purified, as it were in a spiritual furnace, so that any and all contaminants had been purged out, leaving only the pure element. The same truth is found in the great psalm of the Scriptures ( Psalm 119 ). “ Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it” ( Psalm 119:140 ). David used the same word in another psalm, where it is translated “tried” in the sense of “tested for purity.” “As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the LORD is tried. He is a buckler to all those that trust in him” ( Psalm 18:30 ). The word for “buckler” in this verse is the same as for “shield” in our text. T...