Dr Paul Allen

The question is a powder-keg. Those who immediately answer “yes” can hurl as many barrels of anecdotal evidence as those who scream “no.” Few treat this as a legitimate issue — opinions are given in a tone that implies that the very question violates common sense. Different answers are given. Different passages are cited. Different hills are constructed and died on. So, can Christian women and men be friends? To start, multiple  kinds  of male-female friendships deserve unique attention. A single woman and a married man. A married woman and a single man. A married woman and a married man. A single woman and a single man. What do these friendships look like? Should they exist? Does God prohibit them, or are they vital to the body of Christ ? Are they obviously inappropriate, or undeniably essential in healthy church community? It seems to me, after considering the biblical evidence, that male-female friendships lean even more heavily on a process that exi...

Image via Wikipedia There are very few words that transcend circumstances. There are very few words that go beyond social, economic and marital status. There are very few words that hit all of us in the same way, at the same time and with the same potential for impact and change. But these 4 words do: “I am with you.” God is with us. Not distant. Not removed, but close. Not uncaring, but empathetic. Not far off, but living inside us. He is with us. To the single mom working 2 jobs and still coming up short every month:  I AM with you. To the one filled with anxiety and worry in this moment right now:  I AM with you. To the unemployed:  I AM with you. To the one that hates the way their body looks and how they feel when they look in the mirror:  I AM with you. To the person that has no idea what their purpose or passion in life is:  I AM with you. To failure and the mess up that can’t see how they could ever recover from their mistake:  I AM with you. To...

Image via Wikipedia " Henceforth I call you not servants ; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you." ( John 15:15 )   Some things in Scripture are harder to understand and believe than others. Christ , the Sovereign Creator of all things, the offended Judge who declared the penalty for sin to be death, the One who willingly died to pay that penalty and redeem us from bondage to sin, now calls us His friends. Certainly we would like to consider Him our friend ; but are we really His friends? If He were telling someone about His friends, would He include us? Somehow this seems too much--too good to be true; but He insists it is.   Actually, Christ said, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you" ( John 15:16 ). We are His friends by conscious choice on His part, even though He knows more about our inward nature than we will admit to ourselves. He ha...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife Loyalty is a virtue that is linked to the biblical concept of faith. We tend to restrict or limit our understanding of faith to an act of believing, a kind of intellectual assent to the truth of a proposition. We know, however, that saving faith includes more than assent; it includes personal trust. When we probe the depths of this trust, we discover that it is multifaceted. It is within the nature of trust that we see the link between faith and loyalty. Together, faith and loyalty yield fidelity . In our language, loyalty and fidelity serve as virtual synonyms. I read the book of a leading coach who said he valued the most in his players was “Loyalty!” On the surface, this may have been interpreted as the desire of a leader to be surrounded by “yes men” or a band of sycophants. But “yes men” are not really loyal. They are driven more by self-preservation than fidelity. A faithful friend does not exhibit a blind loyalty that refuses to recognize the...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife Loyalty is a virtue that is linked to the biblical concept of faith. We tend to restrict or limit our understanding of faith to an act of believing, a kind of intellectual assent to the truth of a proposition. We know, however, that saving faith includes more than assent; it includes personal trust. When we probe the depths of this trust, we discover that it is multifaceted. It is within the nature of trust that we see the link between faith and loyalty. Together, faith and loyalty yield fidelity . In our language, loyalty and fidelity serve as virtual synonyms. I read the book of a leading coach who said he valued the most in his players was “Loyalty!” On the surface, this may have been interpreted as the desire of a leader to be surrounded by “yes men” or a band of sycophants. But “yes men” are not really loyal. They are driven more by self-preservation than fidelity. A faithful friend does not exhibit a blind loyalty that refuses to recognize the...