Dr Paul Allen

Thomas C. Oden , one of the most gracious and respected theologians of our times, died yesterday at age 85. Professor Oden made the pilgrimage from theological liberalism, and what he acknowledged as an infatuation with heresy, all the way to the orthodox affirmation of biblical Christianity . His story is one of the greatest theological testimonies of our age. The following is an edited transcript of my conversation for “ Thinking in Public” with Dr. Oden about his life and times and the trajectory of his theological pilgrimage. The conversation, “ The Remaking of a Modern Mind ,” was released on March 16, 2015. I am thankful to God for the life and testimony of Professor Thomas C. Oden. Thomas Oden lived one of the most interesting lives of the 20th century and into the 21st. He was the General Editor of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Christian and the Ancient Christian Doctrine series. He was also the director of the Center for Early African Christianity at Eastern U...

Personal holiness has not been a topic that’s received great emphasis in the churches and ministries. In Rediscovering Holiness , J. I. Packer points to the same reality. Packer identifies 3 evidences that Christians today evidently do not think personal holiness is very important: It’s not the topic of much preaching, teaching, or writing.  It’s seldom valued or expected in Christian leaders. It’s not shared in the message of evangelism, declaring to the world that without holiness, “no one will see the Lord” ( Heb 12:14 ). Apart from Packer’s own book , here are a few more faithful works, listed from older to recent, that I believe are good resources for every Christian in their pursuit of holiness: J.C. Ryle, Holiness . This maybe the classic work on the subject and even Ryle’s greatest contribution to the library of faithful Christian teaching. Fortunately, it’s old enough that it can be read online . And there’s also a recent edition with a nice biographical sketch...

Unknown man, formerly known as Matthew Henry, by unknown artist. See source website for additional information. This set of images was gathered by User:Dcoetzee from the National Portrait Gallery, London website using a special tool. All images in this batch are listed as "unknown author" by the NPG, who is diligent in researching authors, and was donated to the NPG before 1939 according to their website. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Matthew Henry was born in 1662, the same year that the Act of Uniformity barred his father, Phillip, and 2000 other pastors (including Thomas Brooks ) from official ministry in the Church of England. Henry was raised by godly parents in the Puritan way (daily Bible reading , prayer, self-examination, etc.) and always wanted to be a pastor. However, believing there was little chance of ever becoming one, he decided to study law and pursue theological study only on the side. Before long he began preaching on the side as well. This led to him...

Cover via Amazon "The activity by which the Christian directly secures the mortification of his sins is prayer," wrote J. I. Packer in his book A Quest For Godliness . But what does this practice of putting sin to death through personal prayer look like? J. I. Packer: "I never get to the end of mortifying sin because sin in my heart is still marauding, even though it is not dominant. Sin is constantly expressing itself in new disorderly desires, as bindweed is constantly expressing itself in fresh shoots and fresh blooms. Once bindweed has established itself in your garden or hedge it is very difficult to get out because it is always extending itself under the surface of the soil. And sin in the heart is rather like that. But as blooms of sin break surface and I recognize them, I am called to — indeed deep down in my heart I want to — go into action with this prayer procedure for draining the life out of them. And I think this is a discipline every Christian has ...

There are many caricatures and missinformation when it comes to how Christians through the ages have viewed sex in marriage. In Dr. Joel R. Beeke's  Living for God's Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism , he dedicates a chapter to marriage, in which he discusses the Puritan's view. Marital love must be sexual, so that both marital partners can give themselves fully to each other with joy and exuberance in a healthy relationship marked by fidelity. Reformers such as Martin Luther , Ulrich Zwingli , and John Calvin established this aspect of marriage by abandoning the medieval Roman Catholic attitudes that marriage was inferior to celibacy, that all sexual contact between marital partners was a necessary evil to propagate the human race, and that a procreative act that involved passion was inherently sinful. This negative view was rooted in the ancient church and based on the writings of such notables as Tertullian, Ambrose, and Jerome, all of whom believed that, even withi...

Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia When you embrace the doctrines of grace, the one that was hardest to swallow was the L in the TULIP acronym: limited atonement—or perhaps better stated (though ruining the acronym): particular redemption, or definite atonement . Both the intent and extent of the atonement was divinely ordained to infallibly secure the salvation of all those whom the Father had chosen from before the foundation of the world (John 6:39; 10:11, 14–15; Ac 20:28; Eph 5:25). Jesus’ death didn’t simply make salvation possible, and then leave the appropriation of the cross’s benefits to the sovereign will of the sinner. No, it actually purchased the salvation of God’s elect (1Pet 2:24; Rev 5:9). Interestingly, one of my chief objections to the doctrine wasn’t so much on textual or exegetical grounds. It was that it contradicted the way we have always heard the Gospel preached in evangelism. You hear the Gospel preached as if it was merely: “Jesus d...

Image via Wikipedia Polls taken by George Barna and George Gallup reveal an alarming intrusion of pagan ideas into the beliefs of modern Christians . A majority of professing evangelicals agree with the statement that human beings are basically good, a clear repudiation of the biblical view of human fallenness. The irony here is that while we decry the baleful influence of secular humanism on the culture, we are busy adopting secular humanism’s view of man. It is not so much that the secular culture has negotiated away the doctrine of original sin, as that the evangelical church has done so. Nowhere do we find more clear evidence of the impact of secularism on Christian thinking than in the sphere of anthropology. Christian anthropology rests not merely on the biblical concept of creation, but on the biblical concept of the fall. Virtually every Christian denomination historically has some doctrine of original sin in its creeds and confessions. These confessional statements do not...