Dr Paul Allen

English: Nadab and Abihu consumed by fire from the Lord; illustration from "Figures de la Bible", illustrated by Gerard Hoet (1648-1733), and others, and published by P. de Hondt in The Hague in 1728; image courtesy Bizzell Bible Collection, University of Oklahoma Libraries. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) His law doesn’t change. The application of it does. Theologians wisely distinguish between natural law and positive law . This distinction, however, must be distinguished from natural law and revealed law. The latter distinction separates what we learn about God ’s law from the created order, and what we learn from His Word. The former, however, distinguishes between the underlying, unchangeable principles, inherent in the nature of things, and the specific purposes of a particular law. The most common example is the Old Testament requirement that one build a fence around one’s roof. Do we still have the requirement? Is the American church under a cloud of judgment for n...

Image via Wikipedia “On the surface,” Tim writes, “the Reformed and evangelical world seems divided between ‘Cultural Transformationists’ and the ‘ Two Kingdoms ’ views.” Although the Transformationists include disparate camps (“neo-Calvinists, the Christian Right , and the theonomists”), “they all believe Christians should be about redeeming and changing the culture along Christian lines.” “On the other hand, the Two Kingdoms view believes essentially the opposite—that neither the church nor individual Christians should be in the business of changing the world or society.” Here, too, there is a spectrum. Then you have the neo- Anabaptists who “much more pessimistic than Reformed 2Ks about the systems of the world, which they view as ‘Empire,’ based on violence and greed.” Yet 2ks and neo-Anabaptists both “reject completely the idea that ‘kingdom work’ means changing society along Christian lines. Both groups believe the main job of Christians is to build up the church, a counter-c...