Dr Paul Allen

It's sexy among young people to talk about ditching institutional religion and starting a revolution of real Christ -followers living in real community without the confines of church. Really? Besides being unbiblical, such notions of churchless Christianity are unrealistic. It's immaturity actually, like the newly engaged couple who think romance preserves the marriage, when the couple celebrating their golden anniversary know it's the institution of marriage that preserves the romance. Without the God -given habit of corporate worship and the God-given mandate of corporate accountability, we will not prove faithful over the long haul. What we need are fewer revolutionaries and a few more plodding visionaries. That's my dream for the church—a multitude of faithful, risktaking plodders. The best churches are full of gospel-saturated people holding tenaciously to a vision of godly obedience and God's glory, and pursuing that godliness and glory with ...

It's sexy among young people to talk about ditching institutional religion and starting a revolution of real Christ -followers living in real community without the confines of church. Really? Besides being unbiblical, such notions of churchless Christianity are unrealistic. It's immaturity actually, like the newly engaged couple who think romance preserves the marriage, when the couple celebrating their golden anniversary know it's the institution of marriage that preserves the romance. Without the God -given habit of corporate worship and the God-given mandate of corporate accountability, we will not prove faithful over the long haul. What we need are fewer revolutionaries and a few more plodding visionaries. That's my dream for the church—a multitude of faithful, risktaking plodders. The best churches are full of gospel-saturated people holding tenaciously to a vision of godly obedience and God's glory, and pursuing that godliness and glory with ...

Salomon de Bray - Jael, Deborah and Barak - WGA03141 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Barak was a hero of early Israel, serving during the pre-monarch period when Deborah judged the nation (Judges 4–5). His great military feat was the complete rout of the Canaanite general, Sisera , and his army. However, in the process he learned the important distinction between imitating and idolizing the faith of a leader he respected. Deborah sat praying on the roof of Barak’s house in the small lakeside village of Kedesh-Naphtali. The afternoon shadows from the southwest hills lengthened into evening over the quiet Chinnereth . Deborah was there at Barak’s request — demand even. Through her, the Lord had called Barak to lead the attack on Sisera. But he had refused unless she agreed to come up with him from Ramah. She did, but his insistence had grieved her. Young military runners had kept her informed on the battle’s progress. She already knew it was a rout. That morning from Mt. Tabor she ha...

Yael Killing Sisera, by Palma the Younger. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “Then the survivors came down, the people against the nobles; the LORD came down for me against the mighty” ( Judg. 5:13). As Deborah celebrates Israel ’s victory over the Canaanites in song, she turns to an account of the battle and urges her soul to exult in the work of God , for such a great work deserves the most heart-felt praise. “ ‘Awake, awake, Deborah!’ ” she cries. As a prophetess, she must proclaim the excellencies of God by word, while Barak , a warrior, is to exalt Him by leading captives in a triumphal parade. “Deborah stirs up herself and Barak to celebrate this victory in the most solemn manner,” Matthew Henry writes in his commentary on Judges. Such a work “needed and well deserved the utmost liveliness and vigor of soul in the performance of it; all the powers and faculties of the soul in their closest intensity and application ought to be employed in it.” The song now tells of the ga...