Dr Paul Allen

Cristo Redentor (Christ Redeemer) (Photo credit: bossa07 ) Luke 9:18–20 “Then he said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered, ‘The Christ of God’” ( v. 20 ). The title Christ is used more for Jesus in the New Testament (some 531 times) than any other title. It is important to remember that “Christ” describes a function or role of Jesus and is not His last name. Even though our English translations of the Greek New Testament usually refer to “Jesus Christ,” a more proper use of the title is “ Jesus the Christ .” Still it is not inappropriate to say “Jesus Christ” or to refer to our Lord simply as “Christ”; after all, He is the Christ par excellence, the final holder of the title and the One in whom it finds its greatest fulfillment. As you might have deduced from the preceding paragraph, we call Jesus the “final Christ” because in actuality, many people have held the same title. “Christ” comes from the Greek wordchristos, which is itself a translation of the H...

Appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalene after resurrection, Alexander Ivanov, 1835 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Daniel 7:9–14 “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him” ( v. 13 ). The title Son of Man appears in the New Testament four times outside of the Gospels . It is used for our Savior unambiguously in three places ( Acts 7:56 ; Rev. 1:13 ; 14:14 ), but whether Hebrews 2:6 intends it as a title for Jesus is debatable. Since it is Jesus’ favorite title for Himself, it seems strange that it is not found more often in the apostolic writings. Maybe the original audiences of the epistles did not know the title’s meaning as well as the Gospels’ first readers. As we continue to study the meaning of this title, we must first consider what it does not intend to convey. Popularly speaking, many Christians look at “Son of Man” as a reference to the humanity of Chr...

English: Illumination of Christ before Pilate Deutsch: Jesus vor Pilatus (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Acts 20:24 “I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course…that I received from the Lord Jesus , to testify to the gospel of the grace of God ” (v. 24). Since Jesus’ proclamation of the Gospel involved telling people that “the  kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:14–15), His commissioning of the disciples to preach the same message in Matthew 10:1 –15 gives us a chance to consider the Gospel and the church ’s spread of it in missions and evangelism. Our English term gospel comes from the Greek word euangelion, which literally means “good news.” In the secular Greek culture of the first century, one who delivered euangelion might be speaking of the birth of a royal heir, a victory in battle, or news about an electoral victory. The New Testament reclaims the common use of this word and invests it with ...

English: St. Paul by El Greco, c. 1608-1614. Originally taken from artchive.com (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The way Paul addresses the Philippians in this verse is unparalleled in his writings. It is a piling up of no less than five terms of endearment, and it illustrates the love and affection that can and should exist between believers. Those final two terms are particularly noteworthy. His Joy He calls the Philippians themselves his joy. And that is a striking designation for a number of reasons. First, given Paul’s overwhelming emphasis on joy throughout the letter (there is some reference to joy and rejoicing 16 times in these four short chapters), it’s significant that he would identify his joy as the Philippians themselves. It’s also striking, secondly, because of where Paul is as he expresses that the Philippians are his joy: chained 18 inches away from a Roman soldier under house arrest, waiting to stand trial before the Roman Emperor. Paul’s joy is unshakable, because h...

Folio 27r from the Lindisfarne Gospels contains the incipit Liber generationis of the Gospel of Matthew. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Matthew 1:1 “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ , the son of David , the son of Abraham” (v. 1). Unlike Paul’s letters, none of the four Gospels explicitly identifies its author in the body of its text. Though the title, the gospel according to [insert the apostle’s name], is attached to each book in the oldest New Testament manuscripts, biblical scholars regard each gospel as an anonymous work. Liberals deny that apostles or their associates wrote the Gospels. However, believers have always affirmed the apostolicity of these books. The early church was certain that the apostles Matthew and John composed the gospels bearing their names. Mark and Luke were not apostles, but the church fathers knew Peter and Paul to be the sources of the second and third  gospel , respectively. Matthew, Mark, and Luke ...

In January of 2011, I had the joy of planting a church in Sherbrooke , Quebec . By God’s grace , in barely two years we grew from 100 to nearly 500, baptizing more than 100 people in that time. We experienced growth like I had never seen or heard of in my thirty years growing up in the evangelical church in Quebec, but our church was born out of a heritage of men and women willing to pay the price to reach the lost. Our sending church paid a heavy price when they sent out 100 people (30% of their members) with my wife and me to start this new church plant, and they are continuing to pay the price even three years later. But they do not regret it. They are seeing the lost being reached, and they themselves received a heritage of willingness to sacrifice whatever is needed to advance the gospel. The senior pastor at our sending church was in turn pastored by Lorne Heron, a missionary from English Canada who came to Quebec in the early 1950s to reach the French-speaking people of Que...

Daniel 7:9–14 “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him” (v. 13). The title Son of Man appears in the New Testament four times outside of the Gospels . It is used for our Savior unambiguously in three places (Acts 7:56; Rev. 1:13; 14:14), but whether Hebrews 2:6 intends it as a title for Jesus is debatable. Since it is Jesus’ favorite title for Himself, it seems strange that it is not found more often in the apostolic writings. Maybe the original audiences of the epistles did not know the title’s meaning as well as the Gospels’ first readers. As we continue to study the meaning of this title, we must first consider what it does not intend to convey. Popularly speaking, many Christians look at “Son of Man” as a reference to the humanity of Christ. Certainly, Jesus is truly God and truly man, but our Lord’s use of the title, if it refers to the humanity of Jesus,...

English: Saint Polycarp (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Philippians 2:5–11 “So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord , to the glory of God the Father” (vv. 10–11). At age eighty-six, Polycarp , the second-century bishop of Smyrna and disciple of the apostle John, was brought to the Roman authorities and ordered to confess that Caesar is lord. Though doing so would have saved his life, Polycarp refused and was murdered, inspiring others to remain faithful. Considered apart from Polycarp’s story, it was not unusual to refer to Caesar as kurios, the Greek term for “lord.” In the original Greek, kurios can mean simply “sir” as a polite and slightly exalted way of referring to another human being. Or, it can refer to a master of many slaves or servants. However, neither of these meanings were in mind when Rome applied the title kurios to the emperor. Instead, kurios signified divinity when used of...

English: Icon of Jesus Christ (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Luke   9:18 –20 “Then he said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered, ‘The Christ of God’” (v. 20). We noted last week that the title Christ is used more for Jesus in the New  Testament (some 531 times) than any other title. It is important to remember  that “Christ” describes a function or role of Jesus and is not His last name. Even though our English translations of the Greek New Testament usually refer  to “Jesus Christ,” a more proper use of the title is “ Jesus the Christ .” Still  it is not inappropriate to say “Jesus Christ” or to refer to our Lord simply  as “Christ”; after all, He is the Christ par excellence, the final holder of  the title and the One in whom it finds its greatest fulfillment. As you might have deduced from the preceding paragraph, we call Jesus the “final Christ” because in actuality, many people have held the same title. “Christ” comes fr...