Dr Paul Allen

The Frenchman Michel de Nostradamus lived from 1503 to 1566. He was by profession an apothecary—a hybrid chemist and drug dealer. In 1550 he published an almanac with zodiac predictions that were all the vogue, and for some reason are still found in magazines today, known as horoscopes. He fancied himself an astrologer but was so bad at doing the zodiac calculations that he usually insisted that his customers hire another astrologer to do the calculations of their birth year and zodiac charts first and then he would merely interpret them. He got quite good at describing the future predictions in such a way that people could in retrospect see how his words fit their situation. These predictions were so vague they could not be understood except with hindsight. He was the forefather of the “You will meet a tall dark stranger” prediction – just before his gullible client gets run over by a brown horse and everyone says, “Aha! Nostradamus predicted that.” In his lifetime Nostradamus became ...

A blood feud raged in 1863-1891 between the Hatfields of West Virginia on one side of the Tug Fork River and the McCoys of Kentucky on the other side. The catalyst was a pig that Randolph McCoy accused Floyd Hatfield of stealing. After four decades of feuding, a dozen lives were lost, and the matter was finally curtailed by the governors of Kentucky and West Virginia, and the US Supreme Court itself. Over the course of the following century, the tension between the families became something of American folklore, the stuff of legends, though it took on a less sinister hue. Today both families make money off the tourist route that commemorates their feud. There are monuments raised in places where Hatfields or McCoys lost their lives, complete with commentary available on audio CD for a self-directed driving tour. But it wasn’t until 1979 that the two families faced off again. This time it was all in good-natured fun. The TV game show called Family Feud features two teams each week who c...

In 1878 Floyd Hatfield had a pig. Somehow this pig got a tiny bit of its ear bitten off or otherwise severed, or so Hatfield claimed. You see, on the other side of Tug Fork river in West Virginia lived a family called the McCoys. The McCoys notched their pigs’ ears in order to identify them. When Randolph McCoy saw the notched hog in a Hatfield sty, he accused Floyd Hatfield of swine theft. The matter soon escalated into a bitter lawsuit. Randolph McCoy took Floyd Hatfield to court over the issue, but the conflict was exacerbated because the local justice of the peace happened to be the honourable Judge Anderson Hatfield. He found no evidence that Floyd Hatfield had stolen the pig and ruled in favour of his kinsman. He wisely made his ruling based on the testimony of one Bill Staton, a relative of both families, and thus was seen to be impartial. The case was closed. Or was it? Two years later, Bill Staton was killed, supposedly in self-defence, by two McCoy brothers. Around that time ...

When exposed to evil, we might doubt God ’s presence. Soldiers’ accounts and memoirs often recall times of doubt as they grappled with war, atrocity and, ultimately, the struggle between good and evil. While Scripture is clear that good will triumph, it also says evil will win its share of battles. Second Kings 3 records a war event where evil won. Does God take sides? Second Kings 3 describes the rebellion of Moab , led by its king, Mesha, against the monarch of the northern kingdom of Israel , King Jehoram (3:5). Like his father Ahab, Jehoram solicited King Jehoshaphat of Judah (the southern kingdom) for assistance against his enemy (3:7). They were joined by the king of Edom (3:9). The invasion route—“by way of the wilderness of Edom”—is critical to the storyline. Edom was the territory settled by the descendants of the red-haired Esau (Gen 25:25; 36:1, 8). “Edom,” a play on the word adom (אָדֹם, “red”), was epitomized by the reddish soil and rock of its wilderness. By tak...

The Great Day of His Wrath (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) "For the day of the LORD is near upon all the heathen: as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head." ( Obadiah 15 ) The book of Obadiah was possibly the earliest of the prophetic books of the Old Testament and is certainly the shortest, with its single chapter. Its theme is God's coming judgment on the Edomite nation, not only because of their general wickedness, but particularly because of their abusive treatment of their Israelite relatives (Jacob's brother Esau was the father of the Edomites ). The prophecy of Obadiah contains (in our text) the first mention (chronologically) of the coming "day of the LORD." Although it appears at first to focus especially on the Edomites, it is really looking far ahead to the end times, when the judgments of that day will be "upon all the heathen." There have been many precursive and partial fulfil...