Dr Paul Allen

Without question, one of the strangest verses in the Bible is Jude 9: But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” Questions have long swirled around this verse and the death and burial of Moses in general. The canonical record of the death and burial of Moses is shrouded in mystery in Deuteronomy 34. Verse 1 says, “Now Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, opposite Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan.”  A few verses later, verses 5-6 add, “So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-Peor, but no man knows his burial place to this day.” After seeing the Promised Land from afar, Moses died alone in the presence of the Lord. Then something mysterious happened: Moses did ...

Thousands gathered at a memorial service this morning to honour the lives of fallen Queensland Police constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold, killed in a deadly siege in rural Queensland last week.  More than 8,000 people, including family members, political leaders and members of the police service, travelled from all over the country to attend the event. Among them was Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton and police commissioners from across Australia, who laid floral wreaths and paid their respects. Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll posthumously awarded the constables medals, including the Queensland Police Valour Medal — the highest bravery award the Commission of the Queensland Police Service can award. An impressive guard of honour formed outside the Brisbane Entertainment Centre after the service, where a sea of officers in blue stood side by side in a procession spanning more than 1km, complete with horses, police dogs, ...

Obviously, nobody delights in the fact of someone’s death . But we rejoice in the opportunity that the death of a believer opens for communicating the majesty of Christ and the glories of the gospel while comforting the family and friends and presenting salvation by grace to those who are lost but have come to “pay their respects.”  But what about an unbeliever’s funeral? Believe it or not, we also count this an opportunity to appropriately, truthfully, and compassionately share the gospel. We can be constantly amazed at how wide the door opens for effective gospel communication at the funeral of an unbeliever. Clearly, the preacher cannot “preach someone into heaven” or give false assurances, but there is a way to carefully turn everyone’s attention to the realities of eternity and their need of the Savior. Let’s think about the challenge of an unbeliever’s funeral first . How do you preach the gospel at funerals for unbelievers?  First, you must be committed to doing it....

At Home with the Lord The New Testament answers the very important question about whether Christians at the point of death are in heaven or not with the comfort of the fact that they are “away from the body and at home with the Lord.” The Christian life is not interrupted by death. Yes, at the point of death, the Christian passes into the nearer presence of God. But we shouldn’t confuse this with the whole idea of resurrection. The resurrection of the body will happen at the time of the renewal of all things when Jesus returns. There’s an urgent need for us to be clear on this. Too often, at funerals, we hear a pastor referring to the deceased as now enjoying a body that is free from disease and infirmity. This may bring great comfort to the bereaved, but I don’t believe it is the teaching of the Scriptures. Paul reminds us in Romans 8 that the whole of creation is now groaning as in childbirth awaiting the future resurrection of all things. That is the time we will recei...

What happens to those who die while denying the truth of God in their lives? What will their rejection of the truth mean for them? Most people today do not want to think about the final judgment. For those who are young, death and eternity seem so far away.  Yet if we would think seriously about eternity—heaven and hell—it would change the way we live today, and for many, it will change where they will spend eternity. Many are betting their eternal destiny doesn't include a final judgment. This is a tragically fatal bet. The holiness and righteousness of God demand that He execute perfect justice on the final day. At the end of human history, God will judge the world, and His eternal purpose for redemptive history will, at last, be fulfilled. Looming on the horizon of eternity, there is coming a terrifying final day of judgment. This world is spinning through space on a collision course with this final day of reckoning. Known as the great white throne judgment, this climactic h...

I understand that Christians should not fear death. Jesus died and rose from the grave.  Therefore, death has lost its “sting” ( 1 Corinthians 15:55–56). But just because the fear subsides, it doesn’t mean we are left feeling indifferent. Death has a way of jolting us into seriousness. Don’t you still get an eerie or maybe even sick feeling when you think about your own death? Some of it is just trying to grasp something so foreign to us: the separation of the soul from the body. We are unable to fathom existing apart from the only body we’ve known. The other troubling mystery is trying to imagine what we will first see and experience after death. What will it be like when we first see a heavenly being or God himself? Death is not an easy thing to meditate on, but the wise person will think about death often. Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. ( Psalm 90:12) When was the last time you prayed that prayer? A wise man thinks about his death often, a...

No. Cremation , however, may have something to say about the Bible . The proper handling of human bodies after death is not something the Bible expressly deals with.  There are sundry ceremonial laws in the Old Covenant about touching dead bodies , but no instruction on what to do with these bodies. As such we need to be careful not to condemn what the Bible does not condemn. How though, could cremation speak to the Bible? Cremation, strange as it may sound, is a form of liturgy.  It is a form for dealing with matters of eternal consequence. As a form it in turn communicates a message. That message, it seems, does speak against the Bible’s understanding of death.  Cremation, however subtly, suggests that our bodies are of no significance or import, that they are simply so much trash that must be burned.  It is implicitly a Gnostic practice, a denial of the goodness of the creation in general and the human body in particular. Burial, on the other hand, ...