Dr Paul Allen

A few years ago, I received this unexpected request from one of my church members with multiple sclerosis: “When you have time, could you please do a Bible study on how to prepare for death?”  This person knew that her condition was incurable, and although death still seemed a reasonably long way off, she was anxious to receive advice on how to face it. I was taken aback by that request, but I should not have been.  This was a very sensible idea.  Why wouldn’t every church member be interested in such a Bible study? Yet, I could not remember when I preached or heard a sermon on that topic. The Bible is very upfront about the reality of death but also very clear that it is possible to die well.  It is perhaps significant that one of the best-known Hebrew words in the Old Testament, the word shalom, which we associate with peace and well-being, first appears in the context of death (Gen. 15:15). Knowing how we may die “in peace” should be an essential concern for us al...

Which mark of the church is most neglected today? Could it be expositional preaching or the practice of church discipline? Could it be training leaders who live up to the character qualities outlined in the pastoral epistles? If we could ask Martin Luther, we might be surprised by his answer. In On the Councils and the Church (1539), he outlines seven marks of the church. The first six are what you’d expect: God’s church is recognized by (1) possession of God’s Word, (2) right administration of baptism, (3) right administration of communion, (4) exercise of church discipline, (5) qualified leadership, and (6) worship characterized by prayer and thanksgiving. Luther’s seventh mark, however, may surprise you. He says that Christian lives must be shaped by the cross. “The holy Christian people are externally recognized by the holy possession of the sacred cross,” he writes. “They must endure every misfortune and persecution, all kinds of trials and evil from the devil, the world, and the ...

The Reformer John Calvin (1509–64) ardently declared the doctrine of justification by faith alone to be “the principle hinge by which [the Christian] religion is supported” (Institutes 3.11.1). Known as the material principle of the sixteenth-century Reformation, the doctrine of justification by faith alone was at the epicenter of the battle to bring needed reform to the church. This biblical doctrine is central to preserving an accurate understanding of the gospel even as we find it so clearly taught in Paul’s letters to the churches of Rome and Galatia. As we approach the Bible’s teaching on justification, it is vital that we comprehend the finer points of the doctrine. To put it bluntly, if we get justification wrong, we get the gospel wrong. Thankfully, we have a rich and faithful heritage of believers who have courageously upheld Scripture’s teaching on justification by faith alone. The Westminster Shorter Catechism presents a clear and succinct definition of justification: Justif...

Pope Francis announced that after five hundred years, Protestants and Catholics now “have the opportunity to mend a critical moment of our history by moving beyond the controversies and disagreements that have often prevented us from understanding one another.” From that, it sounds as if the Reformation was an unfortunate and unnecessary squabble over trifles, a childish outburst that we can all put behind us now that we have grown up. But tell that to Martin Luther, who felt such liberation and joy at his rediscovery of justification by faith alone that he wrote, “I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.” Tell that to William Tyndale, who found it such “merry, glad and joyful tidings” that it made him “sing, dance, and leap for joy.” Tell it to Thomas Bilney, who found it gave him “a marvellous comfort and quietness, insomuch that my bruised bones leapt for joy.” Clearly, those first Reformers didn’t think they were picking a juvenile...

A single event on a single day changed the world. It was October 31, 1517. Brother Martin, a monk and a scholar, had struggled for years with his church, the church in Rome. He had been greatly disturbed by an unprecedented indulgence sale. The story has all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. Let's meet the cast. First, there is the young bishop—too young by church laws—Albert of Mainz. Not only was he bishop over two bishoprics, but he also desired an additional archbishopric over Mainz. This too was against church laws. So Albert appealed to the Pope in Rome, Leo X. From the De Medici family, Leo X greedily allowed his tastes to exceed his financial resources. Enter the artists and sculptors, Raphael and Michelangelo. When Albert of Mainz appealed for a papal dispensation, Leo X was ready to deal. Albert, with the papal blessing, would sell indulgences for past, present, and future sins. All of this sickened the monk, Martin Luther. Can we buy our way into heaven? L...

Over 500 years ago, a German monk named Martin Luther started a protest that exploded into a worldwide movement. So what was the Protestant Reformation all about? 500 years ago, a German monk named Martin Luther started a protest that exploded into a worldwide movement. At that time, Europe lived in the shadow of the Roman Catholic Church. It was more like an empire than a church. It crowned and cast down kings, and used its dominance to keep people in the darkness of superstition. That sounds pretty unfamiliar. But in some ways, Luther’s day was very much like our own. Just like today, everyone had an opinion about the Bible even though almost no one had actually read it. Like so many of us, they were trusting the thought-leaders and taste-makers of their day to tell them what was in the Bible and whether or not to believe it. Luther was one of the very few people actually reading the Bible, and what he found was earth-shattering. Even though he was a monk, Luther hated th...

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther sent what has come to be called the Ninety-Five Theses to the elector and bishop of Mainz, Albert von Brandenburg (1490–1545). This act is commonly regarded as the beginning of the Reformation, which is without a doubt the most important event in the last millennium of church history. Luther’s document raised serious theological issues with a vital element of late medieval piety, namely, the practice of selling papal indulgences. These indulgences, the Roman church claimed, granted remission of punishment for sin in this life and in purgatory. The key preacher hawking these remissions in Mainz was the Dominican friar Johann Tetzel (1465–1519). Luther took direct aim at him when he declared in thesis 27, “They preach vanity who say that the soul flies out of purgatory as soon as the money thrown into the chest rattles,” and, in thesis 35, that to preach thus was to “preach like a heathen.” Hoping to be saved through the purchase of one of these p...

It has been said that the Protestant Reformation was the greatest movement of God in church history since her birth on Pentecost. The Reformation was the time when God, in effect, said, “Enough,” and rescued the word of God and the church of God out from the darkness. With the commemoration date of the Reformation on October 31, 1517, the 501st anniversary is upon us. It was the day when that little-known monk, Martin Luther, nailed a document written in Latin to the doors of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. In doing so, Luther was not intending to start the Reformation, but, to simply dispute the nature of Rome’s teaching on indulgences. So, what are indulgences? Where did they come from? Why was Luther fired up about them? And what is the implication of this teaching on salvation? Indulgences are like a withdrawal from a heavenly bank account through certain works in order to, in effect, pay down debt so as to move one closer to right standing with God. What was the situation s...

WHAT TOP 10 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT MARTIN LUTHER 1. Luther's motivation was his search for God. Luther is often presented as the man who stood up against all kinds of abuses in the Roman Catholic Church . And so he did. But this was not his main concern—this was not his primary drive.Luther became a monk because he was searching for God, and, after he found God as the God of grace, he protested against everything that kept people away from that God. Luther did not stand up to reform the church, but to reform the message of the church. Luther was not against the power of the pope (at least at first), but against the fact that the pope did not use his power for the eternal well-being of believers. After he found God as the God of grace, Luther protested against everything that kept people away from that God. 2. Luther caused a U-turn in theology. The best way to illustrate the radical change in theology Martin Luther brought about is the U-turn. Luther radically ...

The first of Luther’s famous 95 Theses —whose 500th anniversary we celebrate today—is a critique of an erroneously translated phrase in Jerome’s translation of Matthew  4:17 . In English we know this as, “ Repent , for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Luther wrote in Thesis 1, When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said,  Poenitentiam agite , he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance . (See  Luther’s Works ,  31:25 ) Luther does not come out and say that Jerome erred—not on October 31, 1517. But by at least May 30, 1518, writing to mentor Johann von Staupitz , he feels that the Roman church was indeed “misled by the Latin term, because the expression  poenitentiam ag[ite]  suggests more an action than a change in disposition.” It makes Jesus sound like he’s saying, “Do penance.” And, Luther says, “in no way does this do justice to the Greek.” ( Luther’s Works ,  48:67–68 )  What Jesus really said was, “R...

A single event on a single day changed the world. It was October 31, 1517. Brother Martin, a monk and a scholar, had struggled for years with his church, the church in Rome . He had been greatly disturbed by an unprecedented indulgence sale. The story has all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. Let's meet the cast. First, there is the young bishop—too young by church laws— Albert of Mainz . Not only was he bishop over two bishoprics, he desired an additional archbishopric over Mainz. This too was against church laws. So Albert appealed to the Pope in Rome, Leo X. From the De Medici family , Leo X greedily allowed his tastes to exceed his financial resources. Enter the artists and sculptors, Raphael and Michelangelo. When Albert of Mainz appealed for a papal dispensation, Leo X was ready to deal. Albert, with the papal blessing, would sell indulgences for past, present, and future sins. All of this sickened the monk, Martin Luther . Can we buy our way into heaven...