Dr Paul Allen

  Matthew 11:12 is a puzzle for translators. The NIV from 1984 reads like this: From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it. But the same verse from the 2011 NIV reads: From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it. So which one is right? “Forcefully advancing” would be a good thing. “Subjected to violence” sounds bad. What did Jesus mean? Here are three questions to help us decide: How were the words in this sentence used? Were they usually positive or negative in the Greek language that Matthew used? To answer that question, we can use a lexicon, a dictionary of Greek from the New Testament period. What is the context saying? How does this sentence contribute to the message of the paragraph, the pericope, and the book? To answer that question, we must read the surrounding text. How do others understand t...

It's almost an institution, in our culture, in our nation, to describe God as a higher power, something greater than ourselves . What's that, "the force be with you"? What is this higher power—gravity, lightning, earthquakes? Now one thing about this nebulous, amorphous, nameless, characterless power, is that first of all it is impersonal, and second of all and most important, it is amoral. See, there's an upside and a downside to worshiping a higher power—a nameless, faceless, force like gravity, or cosmic dust, or lightning, or thunder. Here's the upside to a sinner . A force that is impersonal and amoral makes no ethical demands on anybody. Gravity does not make judgments about people's behavior unless they jump out of windows six-stories high. But even at that, there is no personal condemnation that comes from gravity, or an earthquake. Gravity has no voice; it says nothing, it sees nothing, and it knows nothing. We could describe this higher forc...

Tidal force as appearance of Gravity force (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) It's almost an institution, in our culture, in our nation, to describe God as a  higher power , something greater than ourselves. What's that, "the force be with you"? What is this higher power— gravity , lightning, earthquakes ? Now one thing about this nebulous, amorphous, nameless, characterless power, is that first of all it is impersonal , and second of all and most important, it is amoral. See, there's an upside and a downside to worshiping a higher power—a nameless, faceless, force like gravity, or cosmic dust , or lightning, or thunder . Here's the upside to a sinner. A force that is impersonal and amoral makes no ethical demands on anybody. Gravity does not make judgments about people's behavior unless they jump out of windows six-stories high. But even at that, there is no personal condemnation that comes from gravity, or an earthquake. Gravity has no voice; it sa...