Dr Paul Allen

English: By Rembrandt. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The Bible teaches that the entire universe was created by God. And that God who has created everything has spoken to humanity in the Bible. And the Bible tells us that a fundamental characteristic of God is that He is holy. 1 John 1:5 says, “God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” That’s a way of saying that He’s entirely pure. God’s character is one of perfect moral uprightness. He is the essence of all that is good—so much so that, as the verse says, He can have absolutely no fellowship with “darkness”—no fellowship with that which is not perfectly holy, righteous, and pure. God’s righteous character was expressed in the law He gave to Moses and the Israelites . You’ve heard of the  Ten Commandments . They summarized the perfection of God’s character. These laws were directives for how people who were in a proper relationship with God must act. We are Sinful The problem is: all of us are sinful. We have

English: The Sin of Nadab and Abihu, as in Leviticus 10, illustration from a Bible card published 1907 by the Providence Lithograph Company (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) It is very important that we take time to prepare our hearts to worship God before we set foot in the building on Sunday.  God made this clear amid the awesome circumstances of the giving of the law in Exodus 19. God called the people to prepare to come into His presence, or near His presence, but not actually onto the mountain where He would speak to Moses . "Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes. And let them be ready for the third day. For on the third day the LORD will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people'" (Ex. 19:10–11). God wanted the people of Israel , before they came near to Him, to get ready to come near to Him, to prepare themselves for an encounter with Him. God gave Israel two d

Icon of the Pentecost (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD.” ( Leviticus23:16 ) This commandment represents the initiation of the Jewish Feast of Pentecost (“fiftieth day”) which, many years later, was the day on which the Holy Spirit came to the church waiting in the upper room ( Acts 2:1-4 ). There were seven such annual “feasts of Jehovah,” all outlined in Leviticus 23 , beginning with the Passover , commemorating the deliverance from Egypt, and culminating in the Feast of Tabernacles , in memory of their entrance into the Promised Land after dwelling in tents in the wilderness. The middle feast of the seven was Pentecost, which seems to have been the anniversary of the giving of the law on Mount Sinai . It was scheduled 50 days after the “morrow after the sabbath” of the wave-offering of the “firstfruits” ( Leviticus 23:10 , 15), which in turn seems to have

View from Mount Sinai, Egypt. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD.” ( Leviticus 23:16 )   This commandment represents the initiation of the Jewish Feast of Pentecost (“fiftieth day”) which, many years later, was the day on which the Holy Spirit came to the church waiting in the upper room ( Acts 2:1-4 ). There were seven such annual “feasts of Jehovah,” all outlined in Leviticus 23 , beginning with the Passover , commemorating the deliverance from Egypt, and culminating in the Feast of Tabernacles , in memory of their entrance into the Promised Land after dwelling in tents in the wilderness.   The middle feast of the seven was Pentecost, which seems to have been the anniversary of the giving of the law on Mount Sinai . It was scheduled 50 days after the “morrow after the sabbath” of the wave-offering of the “firstfruits” ( Leviticus  23:10 , 15), which in

Moses with the Ten Commandments (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) "This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina , and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us." ( Acts 7:38 ) The phrase, "lively oracles," is the King James translation of zao logion, "utterances that are vibrantly alive." The NIV says: "living words." In Stephen’s address, he was referring, of course, to the tables of the law, "written with the finger of God " ( Exodus 31:18 ), and received by Moses on Mount Sinai directly from the Lord. The Greek word logion is derived from logos ("word") and occurs just four times. In the other three references, it appears in the phrase "oracles of God" ( Romans 3:2 ; Hebrews 5:12 ; 1 Peter 4:11 ). These "oracles" are living words, precisely because they do come from God. They include not only the Ten Commandments , but

English: Worshiping the golden calf, as in Exodus 32:1-35, illustration from a Bible card published 1901 by the Providence Lithograph Company (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) God may respond to sin with with patient mercy or wrath. The story of Uzzah provides a display of God’s just wrath; God’s mercy is displayed in Exodus 32, with the story of the golden calf. God has delivered his people from slavery and Moses has now gone up Mount Sinai to meet with God and receive instruction on how this people must now serve their God. While Moses is there the people grow tired of waiting for him, and decide to make a new god. The whole nation comes together in this plan, bringing all the gold they plundered from Egypt , and with it Aaron makes a golden calf. He sets it up there before all the people and they begin to pay allegiance to it, saying, “This is the God that brought us out of Egypt. This is the one that did all these amazing deeds for us.” They worship this God, they bring t

Jesus is considered by scholars such as Weber to be an example of a charismatic religious leader. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Dear friends, now we are children of God , and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure ( 1 John 3:2–3). What does it mean that man is made in the image of God? Historically, theologians in the church have pointed to certain human qualities that reflect God’s character and nature, such as man’s ability to think and to act and to make choices. Beyond this, however, the concept that man is made in God’s image means that man has been created with the unique capacity to mirror the character of God. You as a human being have been so constituted that you have the capacity to reflect the holiness of God. You are not holy in yourself, while God is holy in Himself; but God has called you to reflect His ver

Moses Comes Down from Mount Sinai (Ex. 19:25,20:1-17) Русский: Моисей сходит с горы Синай (Исх. 19:25,20:1-17) (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) In God ’s revelation of himself to Moses on Mount Sinai , he says that he is “ slow to anger ” (Exodus 34:6). However, later in the Old Testament , in the prophecy about Christ in Psalm 2 , we are told to “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for  his wrath is quickly kindled “ (2:12). So which is it? Is God slow to anger or is he quick to wrath? It can’t be both, can it? It seems to me that the answer lies in understanding that there is a distinction between “getting angry” and “kindling wrath.” Getting angry refers to the attitude God has toward his creation. Kindling wrath refers to the ways in which he acts out that attitude. In this sense, we can affirm both: God is slow to become angry, as he tells Moses on Mount Sinai (and repeats throughout the rest of Scripture (see Nehemiah 9:17; Psalm 86:15, etc.). Bu

Moses Showing the Ten Commandments, by Gustave Doré (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Moses with the tablets of the Ten Commandments, painting by Rembrandt (1659) (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Moses with the Ten Commandments (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) When Gentiles die, they are not going to be judged based upon the standard seen in the 10 commandments. Think of the concept that when both the Old Testament and the New Testament use the word “law,” it generally does not mean simply the imperatives in Exodus-Deuteronomy, and it almost never means “the ten commandments.” The laws given to Moses on Mt. Sinai were given to Moses and then Israel entered into a covenant with God to keep them. Gentiles were never held to that standard. Gentiles in Egypt, for example, will not be judged for working on a Saturday.  Gentiles are on their way to hell not for violating the Ten Commandments, but for sinning. And sin is not a falling short of the Ten Commandments, but is rather an action contrary to