Dr Paul Allen

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,  and in sin did my mother conceive me. (Ps. 51:5) They’re the two essential parts of redemption, rescue and restoration, and you and I can’t do either one for ourselves. But it’s hard to admit that we have a problem that we cannot solve. We like to convince ourselves that our anger tells us more about the flawed people we live near than about ourselves.  We like to think that our impatience is more about poor planning or the character of the people we deal with every day. We like to think that our sin can be blamed on the temptations of the fallen world around us.  When we do or say what is wrong, we tend to point to a boss, a spouse, one of our children, a friend, a difficult situation, a busy day, the fact that we aren’t feeling well, bad parents, some injustice, or a long catalogue of other excuses.  But the Bible is quite clear. We all suffer from the same terminal disease. None of us has escaped it. It’s not caused by the...

In the Old Testament book of Ruth, we meet another woman, Naomi, whose expectations were crushed by repeated loss and trauma. Yet one of the book’s most beautiful arcs is Naomi’s redemption. She learns to trust God’s faithfulness even in seasons of deep pain. We, too, often become discouraged when hard times arrive. Scripture warns that, as fallen people saved by God’s grace, Christians will face trials in this world. We may wonder where God is and why these painful things are happening. At times, it can even feel as though God has broken His promises, and we question whether our hope was in vain. This exact situation appears in Psalm 90, one of the most important poems in the book of Psalms. What makes this psalm so powerful is not only its author—Moses—but also its placement. It opens Book Four of the Psalms and follows Psalm 89, in which the writer laments the exile and seems to say that God’s promise to David has failed. The psalmist cries out, “Where are You, Lord, in our sufferin...

“Psst! Did God   really say ?” The very first words of the serpent slyly whispered to Eve in the Garden of Eden haunted me as I wrestled with the Bible’s prohibition of homoerotic sex. I was teaching a module on Biblical Sexuality at the  London School of Theology  in 2009. I was overwhelmed by the volume of new scholarly arguments challenging me to rethink my conservative position on same-sex relationships. Of course, I believed the Bible was inspired, inerrant, and infallible — but in the light of new exegetical evidence, was I correct in holding to a traditional interpretation of the texts prohibiting homogenital relations? Moreover, several of my students who claimed to be “evangelical” had adopted rather worrisome postmodern and permissive perspectives on sexuality. It wouldn’t be easy to persuade them to accept an orthodox interpretation of the biblical texts. Gagnon’s Bombshell Robert Gagnon’s 2002  opus magnum   The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts a...

Those who reject Christ's claims will reject the Bible as a whole, so we are not surprised when we find non-Christians questioning the stories and teachings of Scripture. We are living in a funny age, however, when even many professing Christians want to cast the Bible in a negative light.  It is not uncommon for people who claim to be followers of Christ to question God's character or reject the truthfulness of entire portions of Scripture because they believe specific biblical stories and events contradict God’s mercy.  The invasion of Canaan is one of those stories that prompts many people, including many professing Christians, to question the Scriptures. Charges that “God commanded genocide” are frequently uttered.  Even after responding to the charge of genocide, however, we still need to consider how the story fits into the broader biblical revelation of the character of God.  THE PROBLEM IS US When we encounter something that troubles us in Scripture, we are t...

According to Pastor Andy Stanley, Dr. Al Mohler’s “version of Christianity draws lines, and Jesus drew circles. He drew circles so large and included so many people in His circle that it consistently made religious leaders nervous. And His circle was big enough to include sinners like me, and I come from a long line of sinners like me.” Yes, “On one occasion, Jesus said, ‘Come to Me, all weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. You will find rest for your souls. All. That’s a big circle. That’s the invitation of our Savior. That’s the invitation of our church.” Indeed, as a church, Pastor Stanley stated, “We decided 28 years ago, we draw circles, we don’t draw lines, we draw big circles.” The truth is that Jesus drew both circles and lines and if we don’t do both, we hurt those we are called to help. On the one hand, God’s love, expressed in Jesus, is massive beyond words. Jesus died for our sins. He took the punishment for our guilt. He was pronounced guilty so that we could be p...

What Provokes the Questions So, what gives rise to these questions is that I, and many others in the history of the church, have emphasized the biblical teaching that God created and redeemed his people for his own glory — meaning, to cause his glory (his greatness, his beauty, his worth) to be known and treasured and shown in the universe. That’s what I think “for his own glory” means. “Stars and stones and mountains are means to God’s self-glorification, but not the way humans are.” “My sons . . . my daughters . . . whom I created for my glory” (Isaiah 43:6–7). We’re chosen, predestined, adopted, redeemed through the blood of Christ for the praise of the glory of God’s grace (Ephesians 1:4–7). And that teaching — namely, that all things are from him and through him and to him, to his glory — that teaching causes all these questions to be raised. So, let me respond to these nine questions with a very short answer and then look at the main thing in Scripture. Nine Brief Answers Questio...

Inside the walls of Jericho lived a woman who has forever been nicknamed by those who know of her as Rahab “the prostitute.” History has a strange way of remembering people, but in Christ, Rahab “the prostitute” would eventually become Rahab “a daughter of Zion,” and we can be confident that in heaven she is known by that better name. But the transitions from life in sin to salvation often happen on dramatic stages, and Rahab is no exception. Hebrews 11:30 actually records the destruction of Jericho before the salvation of Rahab. Jericho was something of the Las Vegas of the known world in Rahab’s era. The inhabitants of Jericho were violent, murderous, and idolatrous in the extreme. The evil of the city’s inhabitants was such that God had placed the entire city under His punitive ban; the whole city was to be destroyed.  Joshua 6:17 says, “The city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the Lord for destruction.” This particular type of judgment was the most severe. The Heb...

The sick love of controversy — or the “unhealthy craving for controversy,” as Paul calls it in 1 Timothy 6:4 . The question is from a podcast listener named Brett. “Pastor John, hello! We live in an age of controversy. And that controversy-loving spirit has come into the church.  The Apostle Paul clearly warns us against people in the church who have a ‘diseased’ (nosōn) or ‘unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.’ That’s 1 Timothy 6:4–5 . I wonder if you can lay out principles for what this ‘diseased craving for controversy’ looks like in the church today.” I’ll try to do that in just a moment — namely, lay out some principles to try to avoid what Paul’s denouncing in these verses. But first, let me say a word about what Brett calls our “age of controversy.” He’s right, ...

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 ...

Inside the walls of Jericho lived a woman who has forever been nicknamed by those who know of her as Rahab “the prostitute.” History has a strange way of remembering people, but in Christ, Rahab “the prostitute” would eventually become Rahab “a daughter of Zion,” and we can be confident that in heaven she is known by that better name. But the transitions from life in sin to salvation often happen on dramatic stages, and Rahab is no exception. Hebrews 11:30 actually records the destruction of Jericho before the salvation of Rahab. Jericho was something of the Las Vegas of the known world in Rahab’s era. The inhabitants of Jericho were violent, murderous, and idolatrous in the extreme. The evil of the city’s inhabitants was such that God had placed the entire city under His punitive ban; the whole city was to be destroyed.  Joshua 6:17 says, “The city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the Lord for destruction.” This particular type of judgment was the most severe. The Heb...