Dr Paul Allen

Stained glass window in Long Beach showing John Knox admonishing Mary, Queen of Scots. From Covenant Presbyterian Church, Long Beach, California, USA (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) John Knox turns 500 this year. Actually, historians are not certain whether it was 1514 or 1515, but sometime around there, in the little market town of Haddington, Scotland , down the street from Saint Mary’s Church, Knox was born. As biographer Rosalind Marshall explains, much of Knox’s early life is unknown. He doesn’t enter the history books until his thirties, and what little we know about this life before then comes from pieces left for us by his contemporaries. For example, it’s believed that he attended Saint Andrews University and flourished in this studies, though there’s no evidence for it other than the word of Theodore Beza , his contemporary. Beza considered him a distinguished academician, and others called him “Mr. Knox” — a title reserved for those who held degrees. He likely spent som...

How do we distinguish the promptings of the Spirit of grace in His guiding and governing of our lives from the delusions of the spirit of the world and of our own sinful heart? This is a hugely important question if we are to be calm and confident that the spirit with whom we are communing really is the  Holy  Spirit. John Owen suggests four ways in which the Spirit and the serpent are to be distinguished: The leading of the Spirit, he says, is regular, that is, according to the  regulum : the rule of Scripture . The Spirit does not work in us to give us a new rule of life, but to help us understand and apply the rule contained in Scripture. Thus, the fundamental question to ask about any guidance will be: Is this course of action consistent with the Word of God ?  The commands of the Spirit are not grievous . They are in harmony with the Word, and the Word is in harmony with the believer as new creation. The Christian believer consciously submitted to the ...