Dr Paul Allen

English: Old Beggar, 1916, by Louis Dewis, painted just outside his clothing store in Bordeaux (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “I’m blessed!” “That was such a blessing !” “Wow, you are blessed!” Whether some financial profit, a good meal, an ideal day, or finding our lost keys, we’ve all said it. And those things are blessings. But, too often we risk throwing around benedictory phrases with a shallow, man-centered carelessness. What does God consider “blessing”? God’s definitions of blessing might not always fit the pop-definitions. One in particular, perhaps, counter-intuitive blessing is described from what is considered the greatest sermon ever preached: the Sermon on the Mount . Christ opened it with the declarative blessing, “ Blessed are the poor in spirit , for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:3). What is the essence of this blessing? “Blessed.” It does not refer to emotions of happiness which could change in five minutes, but a permanent state of God’s favor, regardl...

Even when life is “easy” it is hard to show mercy to our fellow sinners. When enjoying order, safety, and congeniality, serving others can still be a challenge. But when you are drowning in poverty, murder, violence, lawlessness, sickness, injustice, pain, and desperation, showing mercy to sinners amplifies the sin in yourself. As a sinner, it is difficult to love someone who doesn’t return your love. So how do you respond when the one you hope to serve desires to kill you? Our full-time team of a dozen missionaries serves in Honduras . This country is incredibly hard to live in, let alone minister to. For five years running Honduras has been the most murderous country in the world. Its people are the second-poorest in the Western Hemisphere. The average first birth occurs at 15 years of age. Hospitals are closed, police are outgunned, pastors are driven from the country, babies starve, treatable illnesses lead to death, and indifference and apathy are endemic. Our fences have ba...

Christology is by nature bound up with the doctrine of _________ ? This sentence comes from lectures given by Dietrich Bonhoeffer at the University of Berlin in 1932. After that year, the Nazis would rise to power in Germany. Bonhoeffer would lose his license to teach and eventually become the director of one of five underground seminaries to serve the Confessing Church —a church that rose up against the German Lutheran Church , which had embraced and endorsed the Nazi party . Now back to the quiz. Here's Bonhoeffer's answer: "Christology is by nature bound up with the doctrine of justification." This sentence comes from his lectures on twentieth-century systematic theology. He began the last lecture, which he entitled, "Preaching," with a simple but urgent and ultimate question, "What should we preach?" We must preach Christ , he declares. Preaching Christ means nothing other than preaching the gospel. Preaching the gospel means, and only can ...

FBI sketch of Timothy McVeigh (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Many teach that Christians should unconditionally forgive grave offenses regardless of whether or not the offender is repentant. This is not biblical. Christians should unconditionally adopt an attitude of forgiveness. We ought always to “wrap the package” of forgiveness. But if the other party refuses to open the present, then forgiveness has not taken place in its fullest sense.  While automatic forgiveness sounds like an antidote to bitterness, this is not the case. Those who try and simply dismiss grave offenses, apart from resting in the justice of God , often encounter emotional and theological problems.  Here is an incomplete list of problems that sometimes arise from unconditional forgiveness. 1. Unconditional forgiveness builds bitterness. All image bearers are hard-wired with a standard of justice. To tell someone to completely forgive a grave offense, apart from repentance on the offender’s part, ...

If there’s one thing President Obama wanted his audience to take away from his  speech  in support of the  American Jobs Act  last Thursday night, it’s the urgency of the crisis facing the United States . Repeatedly he exhorted Congress to “pass this bill,” which the president assured would “create jobs right away.” One of the important perspectives the president reminded the nation of is our dependence on the work of those who have come before us. “Where would we be right now?” asked the president, as he urged us to imagine the world without a litany of public spending projects in our nation’s history, from bridges to schools to Social Security. We might just as well ask, too, where we would be right now without the promises of politicians present and past, who have run up the U.S. national debt in excess of $14.7 trillion, or where we would be without generations of innovative enterprise in the private sector. The greatest truth President Obama spoke last Thurs...

Image via Wikipedia "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." ( Romans 8:22 ) Sometimes we don't get to see the results of our work or choices soon enough to suit us.  But on one occasion, a man's choice and resulting action were given immediate attention, and the effects of that attention even now rule the universe. "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat" ( Genesis 3:6 ). The result of Adam's deliberate sin--"Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression" ( 1 Timothy 2:14 )--was immediate and total punishment upon Adam and Eve, and through them, on all humanity ( Genesis 3:14-19 ).  "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so deat...