Dr Paul Allen

Most of us know that repentance is an indispensable part of the Christian life and that it goes with saving faith as two sides of the same coin. But I am not so sure how many of us know what repentance should look like in practice.  MORE THAN FEELINGS - A CHANGE OF HEART Some of us may well think of repentance behaviorally and believe that it means only saying that we are sorry or making a change in the way that we are living our lives. Others of us may think of repentance attitudinally, as though it means only being disappointed in ourselves or feeling sorry for what we have done. But, while all of these things may be a part of what it means to repent, none of them captures the essence of what repentance actually is. Genuine repentance is more than a change in behavior or feelings; it is fundamentally a change in heart. We see this, for instance, in Matthew 3:8 , where John the Baptist warns the Pharisees and Sadducees that they need to “bear fruit in keeping with repent...

The early Christians saw that the Old Testament was incomplete, and they realized that Jesus had fulfilled it. Thus, they expected that the New Testament would be written and quickly recognized the divine authority of these books. These books, as soon as they were written, would have borne the authority of the apostles, and people would have recognized that from the very start. Now, if that's the case, then you don't need to wait 200, 300 years to have a New Testament canon, because you have books written with the authority of an apostle even in the first century that people would have known bore that apostle's authority, and therefore you would have had books with the authority of Christ from the very get-go. So when someone comes along and says, "Oh, Christians could never have conceived of a new collection of authoritative books," I'm thinking to myself, "But what about the books the apostles wrote? They would have been seen as a new collecti...

This subject is one of great controversy because of extreme positions and emotions. We need to develop biblical balance on this issue in order to escape all the false teaching of our day. I.      The Person of the Holy Spirit       A.      The Deity of the Spirit: He is God.  He is called “God” (Acts 5:3, 4; 2 Cor. 3:17). He has the attributes of God (Heb. 9:14).       B.      He is a “Person” and not an impersonal force. He has the attributes and the names of a person (John 14:16–17; 15:26; 16:7–15). He can be lied to (Acts 5:3–4). He has a “will” (1 Cor. 12:7–11). He can be grieved and quenched (Eph. 4:30; 1 Thess. 5:19).       C.      He is distinct from the Father and the Son . We must reject two growing heresies:Sabellianism: The “Jesus Only” cult and heresy. Modalism: One God in three forms or faces. II. The Work of the Holy Spirit       ...

A Muslim migrant in Rome recently  stabbed a Christian man  in the throat for wearing a crucifix around his neck. The assailant, a 37-year-old Moroccan, is accused of attempted homicide; " religious hate " is cited as an "aggravating factor" in the crime. This is hardly the first "religious hate" crime to occur in the context of the cross in Italy. Among others, A Muslim boy of African origin picked on, insulted, and eventually beat a 12-year-old girl during school  because she too was wearing a crucifix .  A Muslim migrant  invaded an old church  in Venice and attacked its large, 300-year-old cross, breaking off one of its arms, while shouting, "All that is in a church is false!" After a  crucifix was destroyed  in close proximity to a populated mosque, Cinisello Balsamo's mayor said  concerning the identity of the culprit(s) : "Before we put a show of unity with Muslims, let's have them begin by respecting our civilizatio...

Most of us are familiar with Martin Luther's heroic statement at the Diet of Worms when he was called upon to recant. "Unless I am convinced by sacred Scripture, or by evident reason, I cannot recant, for my conscience is held captive by the Word of God, and to act against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me." Today, we rarely hear any reference to the conscience . Yet throughout church history, the best Christian thinkers spoke about the conscience regularly. Thomas Aquinas said the conscience is the God-given inner voice that either accuses or excuses us in terms of what we do. John Calvin spoke of the "divine sense" that God puts into every person, and part of that divine sense is the conscience. And when we turn to Scripture, we find that our consciences are an aspect of God's revelation to us. When we talk about God's revelation, we make a distinction between general revelation and special revelation...

A group of archeologists and other scientists say they have discovered strong evidence that the region of the “Middle Ghor,” where the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are believed to have existed, were in fact destroyed by a meteor that exploded in the sky above, raining down superheated matter and raising temperatures to thousands of degrees, a theory that matches the account of the cities’ destruction contained in the Old Testament Book of Genesis. According to the theory , the meteor exploded at low altitude with the force of a ten megaton atomic bomb at an altitude of about one kilometer over the northeast corner of the Dead Sea, and obliterated all of civilization in the 25-kilometer-wide circular plain that constitutes the “Middle Ghor.” The researchers presented preliminary findings on the subject at this year’s annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research in November, and have been developing the theory since at least 2015. They state that the evidence from radioc...

We believe in the Holy Spirit. That reality is more than meets the eye. That God is alive and at work in our world, and in our lives. That an unseen Person prompts, protects, and provides for those who are Christ’s. That an almighty, invisible Spirit powerfully brings the eternal purposes of God and his Son to bear in our realm, one day soon for all to see. We believe not only in Father and Son, but Father, Son, and Spirit. We baptize in the singular name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ( Matthew 28:19 ). One God in three persons. Three persons in one God — the Father who plans our eternal joy, the Son who purchased it, and the Spirit who preserves it. For thousands of years, the people of God awaited the full revelation of his nature and work, and with it the full personhood of the Spirit. He is not part of God; he is God. With the coming and ascending of the Son, we now see how God’s eternal Spirit has been at work in our world from the very beginning, hovering...

“Therefore you shall make images of your tumors and images of your rats that ravage the land, and you shall give glory to the God of Israel; perhaps He will lighten His hand from you, from your gods, and from your land” (1 Sam. 6:5). The ark of the covenant bounces around the cities of Philistia for seven months, bringing affliction wherever it goes. In Scripture, the number seven typically denotes completeness. In this case, it appears that, after seven months, God’s anger against both the Israelites and the Philistines is complete. The Philistine leaders finally realize what their people already have seen—the ark must go back to Israel. But sending it back is problematic. The Philistines are dealing with their enemy’s God—the return of the ark must be handled properly lest He is angered further. There is also the practical problem of transferring a national treasure during wartime. So the lords of the Philistines turn to their “priests and diviners” for guidance. These ...

At some point, if you are sincere about your Christian faith , you are going to have a conversation with someone about it. Or are you? Let me back up a minute, if “being a Christian” is something you take seriously, you are probably going to THINK about having a conversation with someone about it. AND – you may wonder HOW to have that conversation. Listen, I have been a Christian my whole life and have also been a thoughtful student of the human art of conversation for years and I find this thing – “sharing my faith” – incredibly hard to do. But I WANT to – I really want to . I actually believe that meeting Jesus on this side of heaven will make life richer and more joyful and more peaceful than anything else available to us. There is a tenacity and fierceness to God ’s love through Jesus that holds people firmer in the face of life’s struggles than anyone can imagine. I want everyone to know this. Everyone. Well, the key is figuring out how to start, how to continue the conversa...

Pope Francis has made several controversial statements throughout the years, but perhaps none quite as controversial as the one in this video. You can watch it  here . Sure, it is false teaching , but can you actually call it demonic ? I would define demonic as any false teaching that distorts the Gospel (Gal. 1:6-9) in a way that would lead people to hell ( Eph. 2:1-3). Any preacher on any given  Sunday  may say things that are wrong, but that doesn’t make it demonic. When a preacher’s words cause the people who listen to trust in some other gospel, that is when it becomes demonic ( Luke 17:1-2). As I watched the video, I have found five different, serious errors that the Pope espoused that prove that he not only was teaching error but that he was doing so in order to lead the people who were present away from the true Gospel and into hell. The Pope is concerned about popularity not with truth The Pope is in a hard position here. He h...