Dr Paul Allen

1 CORINTHIANS 6:15–20 “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (vv. 19b–20). Since the earliest days of the Christian church , believers have confessed the lordship of Christ . In fact, the first confession of the church was the simple affirmation, “ Jesus is Lord .” Our forefathers in the faith who lived under Roman rule were killed for this confession, for refusing to say that “Caesar is Lord.” Thus, it is not surprising that the Apostles’ Creed , the earliest of the ecumenical creeds, confesses Jesus as our Lord. But what is our reason for calling Him “Lord”?  The Heidelberg Catechism takes up that issue in question and answer 34, using 1 Corinthians 6 passage as a proof text. Our reasons for serving Christ as Lord are similar to the reasons for our comfort stated in answer 1 of the catechism, namely, that we belong to Jesus. He has purchased us; thus, we owe Him our highest allegiance. In 1 Corinthians 6:15–20, Paul uses ...

They replied, “We want to perform God ’s works, too. What should we do?” ( John 6:28 ) This question is often asked by people who try to work their way into heaven. It was also asked in various ways by men in the New Testament , and it is vitally important to get the correct answer to such questions there and nowhere else. For example, a rich young ruler once asked Jesus, “What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered, “Go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor . . . and come, take up the cross, and follow me” ( Mark 10:17 , 21). That is, there is nothing of his own that one can bring to Christ to earn salvation; one must simply be willing to yield himself fully to Christ. A lawyer had asked Jesus the same question, “tempting him.” This time, His answer was, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself” ( Luke 10:27 ). But this stand...

Behold, we go up to Jerusalem . — Luke 18:31 Jerusalem stands in the life of Our Lord as the place where He reached the climax of His Father’s will. “I seek not My own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me.” That was the one dominating interest all through our Lord’s life, and the things He met with on the way, joy or sorrow, success or failure, never deterred Him from His purpose. “He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.” The great thing to remember is that we go up to Jerusalem to fulfill God ’s purpose, not our own. Naturally, our ambitions are our own; in the Christian life, we have no aim of our own.  There is so much said today about our decisions for Christ , our determination to be Christians , our decisions for this and that, but in the New Testament it is the aspect of God’s compelling that is brought out. “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you.” We are not taken up into a conscious agreement with God’s purpose, we are taken up into G...

“Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses , and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.” ( Mark 6:3 ) There is many an individual who has by God ’s grace found the Lord and has had a fruitful ministry in a place far from his hometown where he once lived a lifestyle of which he has now repented. Going home is difficult, for his former companions in sin will be there to oppose and tempt and disbelieve. In the course of His travels, Jesus returned to His birthplace (v. 1), and although He had lived a sinless life in His early years, He was still only one of the local citizens, and this resulted in their prideful opposition and disbelief. “And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?” (v. 2...

The problem of evil is both a pastoral and philosophical problem . Pastorally, everyone is a victim of evil and sin in the world. Sin enslaves the human heart ( Rom. 6:17-22 ); the world fights against the truth of God ( John 15:18-19 , 17:9 ); the devil and his legion fight to oppose God and all he has made ( Lk. 8:12 ; John 8:44 ; 2 Tim. 2:25 ). The problem with the problem is that, for those who believe in and trust the Triune God of Scripture, it’s difficult for us to reconcile the sheer amount of evil in the world with the infinite goodness of the God who made everything. How could things go so wrong when God made them so good? We will not be able to provide a comprehensive answer to this question. God keeps some things to himself ( Deut. 29:29 ; Rom. 11:33-34 ). We do, however, know this much: the problem of evil has its genesis in us . It’s because man sinned that the world began its ruinous revolt against God. The problem of evil is so insidious, extensive, and prev...

As I read the scriptures, particularly the New Testament , there is a theme that recurs again and again regarding the Christian ’s willingness to be in submission to various types of authority. Given the rebellious spirit of our age, that frightens me. It’s all too easy for us to get caught up in an attitude that will bring us into open defiance of the authority of God . Let’s turn our attention to 1 Peter 2:11–16: Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of f...

“Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.” ( 1 Thessalonians 5:5 ) It may be significant that most of the days during the year which have been considered to have some special meaning are observed as “Days”—for example, Independence Day , Veterans Day , Thanksgiving Day , etc. Those observed mainly at night—such as Halloween and New Year’s Eve , tend to emphasize frivolity or even sinfulness. Christmas Eve may be an exception, but this celebration (December 25) rarely notes the real reason for Christ ’s incarnation. It is for good reason that darkness has become a term referring not only to absence of daylight but also to absence of moral light. Many biblical references make this connection. Note just a sampling. “The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light” ( Romans 13:12 ). “For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be dr...

“Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt : for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.” ( Hebrews 11:26 ) We hear much today about the importance of self-esteem , with the implication that lack of self-esteem is the cause of many of the personal problems and antisocial activities of so many young people (and others as well) these days. But this is not the biblical perspective. The problem really is too muchself-esteem. The biblical command is that we should “in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves” ( Philippians 2:3 ). The man Moses was once a prince of Egypt, probably in line to become the pharaoh, but he chose Christ and the people of God instead, “esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt” (today’s text). Paul the apostle could have become the greatest teacher and leader in the religious/political life of his own Jewish people , but he said: “What things were gain to me, ...

“Would You Rather…?” has become a very popular game in the past few years. One of my favorite “would you rathers” of all time is: would you rather have fingers the size of your legs, or legs the size of your fingers? The Bible seems to present many different “would you rathers”, such as: would you rather live on the corner of a roof or with a contentious wife? But mostly the Bible isn’t very good at the game. It asks questions like: would you rather spend eternity in hell or in heaven? With Jesus or the Devil ? I found one of the Bible’s most devastating “would you rathers”. As I was reading through the Bible I came across a passage in Ezekiel 3:17-21 that completely changed my life. Here God is speaking to the prophet Ezekiel. He has just picked him to be his prophet, and has already told him that he is going to be a messenger to Israel , and now he is going to make him his ambassador. 17  “ Son of man , I have made you a watchman for the house of Isr...

It is truly amazing how often this question is asked. This question contains the assumption that the Bible is filled with many obvious discrepancies which, if true, would make it impossible to believe that the Bible has a divine origin. It is a popular idea to maintain that the Bible disagrees with itself, which casts considerable doubt on its trustworthiness.  If, indeed, the Bible does contain demonstrable errors, it would show that at least those parts could not have come from a perfect, all-knowing God. We do not argue with this conclusion, but we do disagree with the initial premise that the Scriptures are full of mistakes. It is very easy to accuse the Bible of inaccuracies, but it is quite another matter to prove it.  Certain passages at first glance appear to be contradictory, but further investigation will show that this is not the case.  One of the things for which we appeal with regard to possible contradictions is fairness. We should not minimize or ...

There seems to be some type of general consensus among many people that the New Testament documents were written many years after the events took place and hence do not contain reliable information. However, the fact of the matter is that the life of Jesus was written by eyewitnesses or people who recorded firsthand testimony. The writers were all living at the same time these events transpired, and they had personal contact either with the events or with people who witnessed the events.  There is strong internal testimony that the Gospels were written at an early date. The Book of Acts records the missionary activity of the early Church and was written as a sequel by the same person who wrote the Gospel according to Luke . The Book of Acts ends with the apostle Paul being alive in Rome , his death not being recorded.  This would lead us to believe that it was written before he died, since the other major events in his life have been recorded. We have some reason to ...

"The twentieth century, it is safe to say, has made us all into deep historical pessimists." So observed Francis Fukuyama in his seminal 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man . What happened? The nineteenth century’s humanistic faith in inevitable moral progress was destroyed on the battlefields of two cataclysmic world wars and in the unprecedented murderous cruelty of Hitler's gas chambers, Stalin's gulags, and Pol Pot's Cambodian killing fields. History seemed to point, not to a golden age of moral progress and enlightenment, but toward an age of unspeakable cruelty backed by technological developments that would stagger the moral imagination. Fukuyama demonstrated the failure of historical "faiths" such as Marxism, with its confidence in the ultimate victory of the proletariat through class struggle and revolution. His analysis of modern historical pessimism was correct, at least in this respect, for secular myths did not fare well in th...

Death is the great enemy, though many of us live in denial of it. Our culture tries to hide death . We don’t see bodies in the streets, as in some parts of the world. Corpses go straight to the morgue or the funeral home — out of sight and out of mind. Many of us have never seen a dead body . Fewer have witnessed a person actually die. We would rather not think about death, we don’t like to talk about it, and we’d prefer to pretend it won’t happen to us. But it will happen to us. In fact, in one hundred years from now, everyone reading this will be dead. Does that sound harsh? That’s because it  is  harsh! But it is also true. Only as we confront the reality of death will we appreciate the hope of resurrection.  There is nothing like death to make us desire resurrection. John 11 begins with a sick Lazarus . His sisters Mary and Martha sent word to Jesus to come to Bethany (John 11:1–3). But Jesus does not go right away. He delays. In fact, he waits two day...