Dr Paul Allen

English: Illumination of Christ before Pilate Deutsch: Jesus vor Pilatus (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Intentionally or not, embarrassment over the term repentance creates in some presentations of the Gospel the image of a Christ who simply gives a pass to heaven upon a person repenting.   “The sinner’s prayer” (“ Lord Jesus , I receive you into my heart right now …”) has the sound of a mantra that will reserve a place in heaven and secure the present services of a heavenly handyman who will fix the mess we have made of our lives—but leave the structure in essentially the same form in which He finds it. The theologian Louis Berkhof rightly points out that in Scripture, epistrophe (conversion, or turning) is a broader term than metanoia (repentance).  Conversion is about change of life. Repentance is about change of mind. Accordingly, it is generally helpful to think of conversion as a larger phenomenon of which repentance is a part. Metanoia, in its turn, is a larg...

Harold Camping in 2008 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Harold Camping has a lot to answer for, not least that his outlandish views about the end of the world have increased skepticism, even among Christians , about the value of studying eschatology. Let me try to win you back by providing six practical reasons for studying the Bible's teaching on the last things. 1. Eschatology helps us to teach the church The Church needs teaching on this subject, not just because neglect produces a dangerous vacuum, but also because eschatology is the capstone and crown of systematic theology. It sheds light on every other doctrine and answers questions that every other theological subject raises.  Louis Berkhof wrote:  In theology [proper] it is the question, how God is finally perfectly glorified in the work of His hands, and how the counsel of God is fully realized; in anthropology, the question, how the disrupting influence of sin is completely overcome; in Christology , the question,...