Dr Paul Allen

David Murray When a friend or family member experiences mental illness, it can often be a time of great confusion. What’s happening? What should I do or say? What should I pray for? I want to give you some specific petitions to bring to God, but our attitude in prayer is as important as our words, so I want to encourage you to pray with hope, patience, and love. Pray with hope because we are praying to the God of hope (Rom. 15:13), who encourages us to believe in his power when we and the sufferer feel powerless. God can fully heal mental illness, or he can give varying degrees of improvement, or he can give help in managing the condition better. As Jesus said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God” (Luke 18:27). Pray with patience because changes for the better can take a long time, and we can easily give up praying when so little change is evident. Praying for someone with mental illness is more like a marathon than a sprint. It will develop your patience muscles more tha...

By John Piper We all die. We all believe in the promises of scripture regarding eternal life. But what will it be like? The prophet Isaiah tells us in Isaiah 65:17 something pretty incredible. In the new creation, he says, “the former things” — the experiences of this life, it seems — “shall not be remembered or come into mind.” And that raises questions about eternity. In the new creation, are we mindwiped? Isaiah 65:17— Does this passage effectively say that we will be memory-wiped before we enter the new creation? How does it relate to Revelation 5:12,  which puts Christ’s sacrifice — the past-tense ‘was slain’ memorial of his crucifixion in this world — front and centre for eternity.  Well, here’s the quote. Let’s put Isaiah 65:17 right in front of us so that we can be specific. God is speaking: Behold, I create new heavens  and a new earth,  and the former things shall not be remembered  or come to mind. Does that mean a complete memory wipe — like, I assum...

Tomorrow in Washington DC, a few miles away from the church I pastor, will be a rally called the “Trans Day of Vengeance.” The event will be led by the “Trans Radical Activist Network” and has been promoted by political leaders around the country. Supporters of the “Trans Day of Vengeance” say that the Trans Community is under attack, and their protection can only come through retribution. This week has exposed a seething, violent hatred towards those who won’t fly the rainbow flag over their homes, churches, and on their social media accounts. That the Day of Vengeance takes place the week of the Nashville shooting is no coincidence—or if it is, one of the leaders of the trans movement called it “a happy coincidence.” The media has also shown hatred for the church—with major outlets even strongly implying (if not outright declaring) that the church is responsible for the shooting at its own school. The White House expressed support for the calls for vengeance on those that oppose the ...

I n the parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus, the rich man, suffering in hell, asks Father Abraham to send Lazarus to his father’s house to warn his five brothers to save them from hell. His attempt, though not the core teaching of the parable, reveals a general truth, i.e., when a grievous thing strikes us, our natural instinct is to warn others, especially our loved ones, so that they would not suffer the same fate. For one thing, the culture of the rich man — different from ours — tends to encourage such an effort. In that culture, a person does not exist as an independent entity, but as part of a larger group. Within the framework of a shared identity, social obligation always preempts the individual’s self-interests. In the case of the rich man, he is obligated to alert his brothers of an impending terrifying doom. He does so without obsessing with the possibility of being belittled as to why he has landed in the awful spot in the first place. For him, social obligation offsets how...

“It’s impossible to meet God with sunglasses on” —   Bono “Hope is optimism with a broken heart” —   Nick Cave Two rock music world’s most enduring frontmen have published long, exploratory memoirs in the lead-up to Christmas. Nick Cave’s  Faith, Hope and Carnage  record conversations with journalist Seán O’Hagan during the lockdown months of 2020. The epigraph to the book is a biblical quote from the Old Testament book of Isaiah: “A little child shall lead them.” Bono’s nearly 600-page book,  Surrender , is a reflective journey through his life in music, beginning and ending with his birth — in fact, the penultimate chapter is a poetic imagining of his own entry into the world. For these famous rockstars, both books read like adult Sunday school lessons. Both artists see their art and lives intertwined with the Christian faith's spirit, history, and eschatology. Both were “catechised” in different ways as teenagers, endured significant trauma in their personal ...

  Read the Passage 25Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?29Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.33 So, therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he ...

On September 9, 1839, a little boy was born into the Hatfield clan of West Virginia. His given name was William Anderson Hatfield. But while still quite young he got a nickname from his own mother that perfectly described his sinister disposition and aggressive nature. She called him  Devil Anse . The name stuck fast. Around the same time, his little cousin, also called Anderson Hatfield, who was mild-mannered and kind, earned the sobriquet of  Preacher Anse . So Devil Anse and Preacher Anse both grew into their names. Devil Anse was the leader of the Hatfield clan throughout the bitter decades of the infamous Hatfield-Mccoy feud. And although over a dozen people lost their lives and several more were imprisoned, Devil Anse survived the feud and avoided jail time. The infamous New Year’s Night massacre of 1888 was plotted at his instigation. That was the night eight Hatfields, at Devil Anse’s behest, surrounded the Mccoy cabin and opened fire, killing two young girls. Sev...