Dr Paul Allen

“For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised: he also is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the people are idols: but the LORD made the heavens.” ( 1 Chronicles 16:25-26 ) This testimony is in the heart of a great hymn of thanksgiving ( 1 Chronicles 16:7-36 ) composed by David when the Ark of the Lord was brought back to Jerusalem . It is a testimony of the unique greatness of the God of Israel , with recurring expressions of gratitude for His deliverances and blessings. This God of Israel was no mere tribal-god or nature-god, such as Dagon , the fish-god of the Philistines from whose hands the Ark had been delivered. All such “gods” of the peoples of the earth—whether wooden images in a shrine, astrological emblems in the heavens, or mental constructs of evolutionary humanistic philosophers—are nothing but idols (that is, literally, “good for nothing,” “vanities”). It is Jehovah God who is not only in the heavens but who made the heavens! It is their Creator ...

Sign and diagram in Jordan of the Dead Sea. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Scripture often speaks of the entire creation awaiting the final act of redemption. To destroy something completely and to replace it with something utterly new is not an act of redemption. To redeem something is to save that which is in imminent danger of being lost. The renovation may be radical. It may involve a violent conflagration of purging, but the purifying act ultimately redeems rather than annihilates. The new heaven and the new earth will be purified. There will be no room for evil in the new order. A hint of the quality of the new heaven and new earth is found in the somewhat cryptic words, "Also there was no more sea" (Rev. 21:1). For people who have a love for the seashore and all that it represents in terms of beauty and recreation, it may seem strange to contemplate a new earth without any sea. But to the ancient Jew , it was a different matter. In Jewish literature, the sea was often...

Samuel_reproving_Saul (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Did Samuel make a mistake? Was Samuel human like everyone else? ( 1 Samuel 9–11; 13; 15-17).  Do you feel for Saul. He started well but finished badly. According to 1 Samuel 9:2, he was “An impressive young man without equal.” After Saul has been briefly introduced, we immediately start into the story of how Saul and Samuel meet. In verse 9, we are given some parenthetical background information. “Before time in Israel ,” it tells us, “when a man went to enquire of God , thus he spake, Come, and let us go to the seer: for he that is now called a Prophet was before time called a Seer.” The picture we have in 1 Samuel 9–10 is of a good and modest man (compare verse 1 of chapter 9 with verse 21 in the same chapter) who has the wisdom to keep his mouth shut (1 Samuel 10:14–16) and the good sense to at least try avoiding the limelight (1 Samuel 10:21–22). But whether he likes it or not, he’s going to be king, and he’ll hav...

David Slaying Goliath (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The Bible uses human examples in order to help us on our own Christian pilgrimages. From Hebrews 11 and 1 Corinthians 10 two principles in particular could be discerned. First, the Bible uses past examples of men and women who trusted in the Lord despite extreme hardships to show us that even in the face of the many difficulties that we too face in life we have strong reasons to trust in the Lord, as did the saints of old (Heb. 11).  Second, the Bible also points to examples of unbelief in order to warn us not to head down that path, or to turn back if we are already giving ourselves over to the deceitful pleasures of unrepentant sin (1 Cor. 11). These principles were derived from examining ways that the New Testament uses human examples from the Old Testament . What about Old Testament stories that are not mentioned in the New Testament as examples to follow (or avoid)? Is it legitimate for us to look to these stories as ...

English: Jerusalem Model, The city of David, the Pool of Siloam and the southern wall of Mount Moriah Deutsch: Jerusalem Modell, Davidstadt, im Vordergrund der Teich von Siloah und die Südmauer des Tempelberges Français : Maquette de Jérusalem, la Ville de David. Au premier plan, la piscine de Siloé et la muraille sud du Mont du Temple (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) After assuming the throne, David launched a swift and effective campaign that raised Israel from the threat of extinction to the pinnacle of ancient Near Eastern power. A weakened Egypt to the southwest and still coalescing Mesopotamian powers in the northeast offered a window of opportunity for a smaller nation like Israel to dominate. • David conquered Jerusalem , and made it royal rather than tribal property (“the city of David ”). • David moved the capital from Hebron in the southern hills to the more central, neutral, and strategically located Jerusalem, from which he could launch his international exp...

David and Goliath, a colour lithograph by Osmar Schindler (c. 1888) (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) "And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD's, and he will give you into our hands." ( 1 Samuel 17:47 ) These were the ringing words of faith uttered by young David as he faced the Philistine giant, Goliath . Without armor, or spear, or shield, and with only a sling and five smooth stones, David confronted the nine-foot champion of the pagan army in the name of the true God , and soon the giant lay dead with his face to the ground. The battle must always be the Lord's . "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against . . . the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places" ( Ephesians 6:12 ). Spiritual battles are not won by bullets, nor by ballots, nor by any human means. "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember th...

English: Abraham embraces his son Isaac after receiving him back from God (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the LORD blessed him. The man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy. He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him. So all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth (Genesis 26:12–15). ENVY The Philistines did not steal Isaac’s wells; they ruined them. The stopped-up wells did not make them richer; they made Isaac poorer. What was the Philistines’ motivation? The text is clear: envy. The Philistines wanted to see Isaac worse off. They resented the fact of his wealth. They resented the God who had made him wealthy. They could not attack this God, and they chose not to attack God’s man. They did the next best thing: they attacked the property of ...

Samson in the Treadmill, by Carl Bloch, Danish painter, d. 1890. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) A stone seal from the 11th century BC , possibly depicting a man fighting a lion, has been discovered at the site of Beth Shemesh . The archaeologists who excavate the site have suggested identifying the scene on the seal with the story of a man fighting a lion, and that this story or legend eventually found its way into the text of the Bible and the Samson story. The seal is approximately 1.5 cm in diameter and depicts what appears to be a long haired man fighting (punching? or standing next to?) a four legged animal with a feline tail which even seems to have a tassel at the tip (unique to lions) and a head that appears to have some type of pointed ears like a feline. Because lions are known from historical records and ancient artwork to have inhabited the Levant in antiquity, identifying the animal figure with a lion is plausible. Beth Shemesh, or "House of the Sun," is loca...