Dr Paul Allen

My very good friend, Pastor Kindah Greening tell me that the essential content of Christian preaching, the mystery of the gospel is simply  missing from our churches. The Apostle Paul writes that the preaching of the Word of God is seen in "the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations but has now been manifested to His saints" (Col. 1:26).  A mystery? All around Asia Minor and the ancient world at this time, there were mystery religions and mystery cults , and there were some who thought, especially from the Roman perspective, that Christianity was just another one of them. After all, it had its mystery. And Paul said, "Guilty as charged." Yet this is not a mystery of esoteric knowledge. This is not a gnosticism of elitist intellectuals. No, this is a mystery that was hidden by God until it could be publicly revealed in the incarnation of Jesus Christ , in His death, burial, and resurrection. This is a mystery! There is something de...

“ Come and see ,” he said. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when they went with him to the place where he was staying, and they remained with him the rest of the day” ( John1:39 ) This is the first of the gracious invitations of the Lord Jesus to “come” to Him. On this occasion, right after His baptism by John, He invited two potential disciples to come with Him to His dwelling place. Very likely, this was an outdoor mat somewhere, for He soon afterward acknowledged that “the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head” ( Matthew 8:20 ).  Nevertheless, one night of abiding with Jesus changed their lives . Soon afterward, He issued another invitation to them.  Jesus called out to them,  “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!”  ( Mark 1:17 ), and they never went home again. First He invites us to come to see and know Him, then to come with Him to win others. There is also the wonderful invitation to come to Him for relief from...