Dr Paul Allen

Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglican Church http://www.stjohnsashfield.org.au, Ashfield, New South Wales. Illustrates Jesus' description of himself "I am the Good Shepherd" (from the Gospel of John, chapter 10, verse 11). This version of the image shows the detail of his face. The memorial window is also captioned: "To the Glory of God and in Loving Memory of William Wright. Died 6th November, 1932. Aged 70 Yrs." (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) There is an undercurrent of irrationalism in modern scientific writing. Despite scientific advances, "chance" is put forth as the cosmic power behind creation. As such, it's tempting to believe science is the enemy of faith. I've met University students who, raised in the church , believe that the church is hostile to science. Countless students abandon the faith when they face "scientific" challenges to Christianity for which they aren't prepared. How should we respond t...

English: Anonymous 16th century portrait of Calvin. (Front cover Cottret, Bernard (2000), Calvin: A Biography, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans) (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “Ever since in the creation of the universe he brought forth those insignia whereby he shows his glory to us, whenever and wherever we cast our gaze.… And since the glory of his power and wisdom shine more brightly above, heaven is often called his palace. Yet … wherever you cast your eyes, there is no spot in the universe wherein you cannot discern at least some sparks of his glory.” (Institutes, 1.5.1) From the Institutes’ preface, John Calvin portrayed the human condition as “naked of all virtue,” enslaved, blind, and weak. The purpose of this depiction was to preclude all occasion for self-glorying and give all glory to God . Human beings, thought Calvin, should be stripped of “vainglory” to “learn to glory in the Lord.” Five centuries after Calvin’s birth, John Piper suggests that a fitting sy...

Cover of an TNIV NT, 2002 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The International Bible Society and Zondervan announced the preparation of Today’s New International Version (TNIV). The day before the announcement was made in the national media, representatives of Zondervan and the International Bible Society notified the signatories of the Colorado Springs accord that they were withdrawing their names from the agreement. The defenders of the TNIV translation argue that it is driven not by a feminist agenda or by a desire to be “politically correct.” The repeated claims of its authors and publishers is that it is an endeavor to improve the “accuracy” of the English Bible. But if the TNIV is more accurate than the NIV , why does Zondervan intend to continue to publish the NIV? If Zondervan is really committed to accuracy, it would seem that it would have the TNIV replace the NIV altogether. Actually, the TNIV appears to be a move not toward greater accuracy but away from it. One example: I...

English: Jesus Christ - detail from Deesis mosaic, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD our Maker (Ps. 95:6). The writer of Psalm 95, in exhorting Israel to praise God in a solemn assembly, directs them to worship God properly as Creator and Redeemer. He also warns the church not to harden its heart against God, but to worship Him with sincerity. The psalmist instructs believers to thank God for electing them to eternal life by His free favor. God supplies us with ample ground for praise when He invests us with spiritual distinction and advances us to a greater status than the rest of mankind by making us heirs to His kingdom. This honor rests on no merits of our own, but only the merits of Jesus Christ . The duty of God’s people, therefore, is to devote themselves entirely to God. The worship of God demands our whole strength. We must keep in mind God’s authority as we approach Him in worship...

Cover of He Lives If the dead do not rise, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” (1 Cor. 15:32). Because our risen Savior reigns and will continue to reign until “He has put all things under His feet,” until He has destroyed that last enemy of humanity, which is death, we possess a hope that our life is not in vain. We live because He lives , and our lives are to bear the fruit of righteousness , not the fruit of licentiousness. Because we have hope for the future, because we live under the Lordship of a risen Savior, we do not live as the world lives, in hopelessness and sin, but we live unto Christ and for His glory. A world that rejects the Lordship of Christ and the hope of the resurrection through faith in Him has nothing to look forward to. All it can say is “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” It is not an accident that in a culture that has rejected God , despair and unrighteousness run rampant. If there is no hope, what does it matter how we live? “The...

Image via Wikipedia There are so many needs in the church today that it is difficult to single out one as the greatest. However, if I had to pick one, I would say the most fundamental need is an ever-growing awareness of the holiness of God . The emphasis of my own ministry has been the believer’s personal pursuit of holiness. But years ago I came to realize the gospel has to be the foundation and motivation for the pursuit of holiness . Believers need the gospel to remind them that our standing with God is not based on our own obedience but on the perfect, imputed righteousness of Christ . Otherwise, the pursuit of holiness can be performance driven: that is, “If I’m good, God will bless me.” How, then, can we get Christians to embrace the gospel every day? I believe Isaiah 6:1–8 gives us a paradigm for addressing this need. Isaiah sees God in His holiness, that is, His supreme majesty and infinite moral purity. In the light of God’s holiness, Isaiah is completely undone by an...

Image via Wikipedia MATTHEW 25:31 –46 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him … he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left” (vv. 31–33). According to Matthew’s gospel, only two kinds of people walk this earth: those who love Jesus and those who do not. There is no middle ground—either we are for the Savior or against Him (12:30). On one hand, Herod’s evil plans showed him to be one of the Lord’s enemies (2:16–18), and on the other, Matthew’s leaving all to follow Christ indicated what side he was on (9:9). Then there was the rich young ruler, whose seeming love of money placed him on the wrong side (19:16–22). Those who refuse to invest their goods and talents for the sake of the kingdom have no love for Jesus, but the people who put their gifts to work for God will be seen for the kingdom servants they are (25:14–30). The picture of final judgment in today’s passage is further evidence that all people will be grouped into tw...

Image via Wikipedia Jesus answered, “It is written: Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God ” (Matthew 4:4). Early in the twentieth century, two European theologians mounted an assault on nineteenth-century liberalism. The nineteenth-century liberals had tried to find the “historical Jesus” by discounting the testimony of the Bible and filtering the biblical evidence through their own conceptions of what must have happened. They had used “literary science” to “prove” that the Bible is merely a collection of human opinions about God and not the Word of God at all. The two theologians who attacked this idea, Karl Barth and Emil Brunner , were called “neo-orthodox” because they seemed to be affirming the orthodox Christian faith against the more liberal mind set. They maintained that the Bible was the Word of God and that God inspired it—but what they meant by these statements was radically different from true Christianity. Barth and Br...

Image via Wikipedia Of course. Even Judas was sorrowful over his sin, according to the Bible. The world is full of people who are disgusted at at least some of their sins , who seek to put particular sins behind them.  This kind of sorrow is not how we have peace with God . While repentance is intimately connected to how and why God forgives us, it is not at all by itself a sufficient cause. Properly speaking that repentance which “saves” is not merely a turning  from , but is a turning  to . We have peace with God because Jesus suffered the wrath of the Father that is due to us for our sin, and because He lived a perfect life.  The work of Christ becomes ours when we, because of the work of the Holy Spirit in first regenerating us, repent and believe, or trust in the work of Christ. If we so trust all our sins are forgiven, because they have already been punished. This describes all our sins, past, present and future. If our repentance includes turni...