Dr Paul Allen

On its own, it’s hard to make sense of Jesus’ eye-lamp metaphor. However, the ambiguity fades when our interpretation of “the eye is the lamp of the body” involves reading Jesus’ words in context. He’s using imagery from the Hebrew Bible to say that one's spiritual health can be assessed in part by observing the way one uses material possessions. First, this single sentence belongs to a large body of teaching found in Matthew 5-7, known as the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus talks about the body’s eye-lamp in a section of the sermon that focuses on the dangers involved with wealth. This context helps us see that his metaphor specifically speaks to our relationship with money and possessions. Second, as a Jewish teacher, Jesus appeals to common idioms in the Hebrew Bible. Seeing how biblical authors use the metaphorical language of “light-filled” versus “dim” eyes—or “good” versus “bad” eyes—can help us gain a deeper understanding of Jesus’ intended message. For Jesus, the eye becomes an...

Words are weapons. They are either weapons used in the service of God and His kingdom—weapons that are brandished in love for God and our neighbour—or they are weapons used in the service of the kingdom of this fallen and sinful world—weapons wielded in the love of self and hatred of God and neighbour.  This is simply the reality of what words are.  This reality powerfully confronts us in our current context, and we struggle with how to wield our words. We live in the middle of a swirling vortex of political conflict, social unrest, clashing values systems, a culture war, and a global pandemic, and the power of words as weapons through social media has exponentially increased.  Through various forms of social media, words as weapons are used to mobilize, encourage, scare, advocate, anger, inform, judge, punish, reward, lament, and rejoice, all on a massive scale and with dizzying speed. How do we navigate through this daunting and sometimes overwhelming reality, and how ...

Christ the Saviour (Pantokrator), a 6th-century encaustic icon from Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai. NB - slightly cut down - for full size see here (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “When therefore I have completed this and have delivered to them what has been collected, I will leave for Spain by way of you. I know that when I come to you I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ .”- Romans 15:28-29 In Romans 15:25-27 , we learn that Paul saw the collection of monies from Gentile Christians to provide for the Jerusalem church in its material poverty as an act of theological significance demonstrating the unity of the church universal. By giving to the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, the Gentiles would be acknowledging their reliance on the Jewish nation for the spiritual blessing of salvation in Christ.  After all, Jesus was Jewish and Jewish Apostles were the first to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. We should not miss, however, that in receiving the ...

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit (Photo credit: Lawrence OP ) Therefore, as God ’s chosen people , … clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness , … and patience  (Col. 3:12). The fourth fruit of the Spirit , or the fourth aspect of the Spirit’s work, is patience. Christians should not be impatient people. If the Spirit is active in their lives, they will become more and more patient . We have all seen impatient people who cannot seem to wait for anything. But in ordinary life, patience is not usually a difficult virtue to manifest. In the face of suffering , however, patience becomes hard. When Job suffered, the temptation offered by his wife was “curse God and die” (Job 2:9). Job’s wife tempted him to commit suicide, so to speak, and thereby end his torment. When we hurt we are impatient for healing, and we need the special blessing of the Spirit to persevere despite the pain. Galatians 5:22 probably has reference to patience with other people. Here again, it is when other peopl...