Dr Paul Allen

Issues of conscience and preference require careful consideration to maintain unity and love within the church. Understanding these categories helps Christians respect diverse opinions and avoid unnecessary conflicts, promoting a more unified and loving community. Is it an issue of conscience? Conscience issues arise when someone abstains from something that is neither sinful nor foolish, influenced by biblical wisdom and personal experience. Even among like-minded believers, circumstances colour perspectives. The influence of your personal experience can make it difficult for you to imagine how others could operate differently in good conscience. No wonder the New Testament commands believers to respect and tolerate diverse opinions on issues in this category (Rom 14:13). Christians must submit their consciences to God (Rom 14:5–7) and seek to build one another up in love (Rom 14:19), even as they exercise liberty with discretion (Rom 14:20). Is it an issue of preference?   The ke...

By faith, he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. (Heb. 11:28) “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” These words from Exodus 12:13 are some of the most comforting in the Old Testament, if not the entire Bible. But comfort (biblically speaking) often comes amid crisis.  When God spoke these words to Israel through Moses, Israel was in anything but a comfortable position. For several hundred years, they had been harshly enslaved by the Egyptians. Their God—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—had been deafeningly silent throughout those centuries.  Egypt was a land full of pagan deities, and Pharaoh was a self-proclaimed deity among them—and he knew neither Joseph nor the God of Joseph. Time has a way of chilling warm memories, and all that God had done for Israel and the Egyptians had faded from memory. The people of God now pined away as slaves, labouring under the blighting sun of Pharaoh’s vainglory—a ...

When distinguishing guilt from shame, we can easily oversimplify what makes them different and not appreciate certain similarities. I began to make this point in Part 1 of this series. In this post, I want to add a few unique features of shame, compared to guilt, that is not only interesting but important. A Unique Problem and Solution An interesting feature of shame marks it distinct from guilt. Shame is “contagious.” Gregg Ten Elshof has a fantastic new book (called “For Shame”) coming out this summer in which he explains: Shame and its opposite, honor, are contagious. Guilt and its opposite, innocence, are not. We talk about “guilt by association.” But, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as guilt by association.… you cannot be guilty for something someone else has done merely by means of your association with them. Guilt and innocence are inherently individualistic. They accrue to individuals as a consequence of what they (and only they) have done or failed to do. (86) Of cou...

I long and pray for revival in the church today. Yet when I look around at the state of the Western church—especially at how Christians act online, which is largely as decadent and worldly as anyone else—I struggle to imagine revival taking place. There are many reasons for our compromised witness and deteriorating spiritual health. The headwinds of secularism are real. The corrupting effects of comfort and consumerism are significant. But a big reason I’m skeptical that we’ll see revival in my generation is related to our technological environment—and how we’ve passively cowered to its conditioning. In short, we’re too distracted for revival. Of course, revival is God’s initiative. The church at its best does not guarantee revival, nor does the church at its worst preclude it. God can choose to do a mighty work even in the most wayward generations. Indeed, revival often begins in the low ebbs, when internal combustion or external persecution (or both) bring the church to its knees. Bu...

In the historical drama about the American Revolutionary War, The Patriot, a slave named Occam is signed up for the militia in place of his enslaver, who is too cowardly to fight himself. Occam goes to war because he has been forced to. He is thrust into duty. But the sub-plot thickens. Occam later discovers that General George Washington has issued a declaration that promises freedom to any man who fights in the militia for one year. As soon as he discovers this, his attitude changes to one of determination and hope for freedom. His racist comrades assume that as a reluctant conscript Occam will quit fighting for the cause as soon as he gains his freedom. However, after fighting for a full year, the warrior is granted his freedom, and for the first time, he has the choice to do as he pleases. His shows his mettle when he chooses to remain in his fighting unit, of his own volition, fighting for the cause as a compatriot, not as a slave. In a similar way, Christians choose to...

Salvation in Christ is liberation, and the Christian life is one of liberty-Christ has set us free ( Gal. 5: 1; ct. John 8:32 , 36). Christ's liberating action is not basically social, political, or economic improvement, as is sometimes suggested today; it is liberation from the law as a means to salvation, from the power of sin, and from superstition. First, Christians have been set free from the law as a system of salvation. Being justified by faith in Christ, they are no longer under God's law , but under His grace (Rom. 3:19; 6:14, 15; Gal. 3:23-25). Their standing with God (the "peace" and "access" of Rom. 5: 1, 2) is assured because they have been accepted and adopted in Christ. It does not, nor ever will, depend on what they do, nor will it ever be imperiled by what they fail to do. They live, not by being perfect, but by being forgiven. Although they are fallen, human beings think they can gain a right relationship with God through discipline...

I wish I had been told when I was young about the lie all of us naturally believe. This lie is explained to us by Jesus when he said to the Jews who had believed on Him:  “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him: “We are offspring of Abraham , and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” (John 8:33). This is an extraordinary response! How can these Jews say that “they have never been enslaved to anyone”? Had they forgotten slavery in Egypt , bricks without straw, plagues, the Passover , and the Red Sea ? In fact, redemption from slavery was part of their very identity. Not only was it their historical identity, but their deliverance from bondage in Egypt was celebrated each year at Passover. Jesus did not bother enumerating these facts. He went immediately to the basic point of human reality:  “Everyone who commits sin is a s...

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin . 1 John 1:7 There is a common cultic heresy to the effect that the blood of Christ has no cleansing efficacy of itself, even though this contradicts the plain statement of our text. John wrote the above words long after Christ’s blood had all been spilled on the cross, but it was still miraculously cleansing sinners in His day, and is in ours as well. It is true that Christ’s blood supported His physical life, for “the life of the flesh is in the blood” ( Leviticus 17:11 ). But His blood was not like the blood of other men, for it was “the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” ( 1 Peter 1:19 ), uncontaminated either by genetic defects due to accumulated generations of mutations (as in all other men and women) or inherent sin.  When His blood was shed, it did not simply disappear into the...

We all live for something . Some purpose statement hides beneath all our desires and decisions, whether we know it or not. We do everything we do out of love — for something or someone. The question is whether that purpose (or person) is worth all the time, money, and energy we’re spending. Freedom and independence may be the purpose of choice among twentysomethings today. Clinical psychologist Meg Jay who focuses on young adults writes, “By the new millennium, only about half of twentysomethings were married by age thirty and even fewer had children, making the twenties a time of newfound freedom. . . . The twenties were now disposable years lubricated by disposable income” The Defining Decade ). The twenties have become this new kind of “paradise” in between childhood and real adulthood, when you can party hard, experiment with new things, and spend lots of money without feeling the consequences. We postpone becoming adults, or at least the responsibilities that come with being a...

Gentiles are to be distinguished from Jews in that they “do not have the law” (Rom. 2:14). Therefore, Gentiles are said to be “without the law” (Rom. 2:12). When Paul thinks of those who have the law (Jews) and those who do not have the law (Gentiles), he distinguishes between sin and transgression. Gentiles, even though they do not possess the law, still sin. “All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law” (Rom. 2:12). Transgression can be distinguished from sin, for “where there is no law there is no transgression” (Rom. 4:15). If we adopt this distinction, Gentiles did not transgress the law, for they did not have the written law. But even though they did not transgress a written law, they still sinned, in that they violated the will of God. Similarly, Paul argues that those who lived between the time of Adam and the time of Moses sinned, even if they did not transgress a specifically revealed commandment as Adam did or as the Israelites did under the Mos...

“Let thy mercies come also unto me, O LORD, even thy salvation, according to thy word.” (Psalm 119:41) The Hebrew word hesed, used here for “mercy,” has a breadth of meaning. Its basic connotation is “kindness” and is most often used in God’s patient dealing with the nation of Israel through their long, and often rebellious, history. The most frequent contextual use focuses on God’s withholding judgment during specific times or events, rather than executing the just sentence demanded by disobedience to His laws. It is in that sense that “salvation” is often connected to mercy. God “rescues” a person or nation from the consequences of foolish or rebellious actions because He is merciful: “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). This section of Psalm 119 clearly states that these mercies are according to the Word of God. No event dilutes the holiness of God. No judgment withheld violates the innate nature of the thrice-holy Creator. Mercy may delay judgment for ...

Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553): Adam and Eve. Beech wood, 1533. Bode-Museum, Berlin (Erworben 1830, Königliche Schlösser, Gemäldegalerie Kat. 567) (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I don’t see any problem in reconciling the sovereignty of God with man’s free will as long as we understand the biblical concept of freedom . With respect to mankind, human beings are given the ability to make free choices, but our freedom is a limited freedom. We are not absolutely free. Remember, God said to Adam and Eve , “You may eat of all of the trees in the Garden .” But then he added a restriction: “Of this tree you may not eat. If you do, you will surely die.” Now, God is a being who has the ability to make free choices, and I am a being who has the ability to make free choices. The difference, however, is that I am not sovereign. God is sovereign. God has more authority than I do. God has the right and the power and the authority to do whatsoever he pleases. I have the power and the ability an...