Dr Paul Allen

Mitch Chase A skin-diseased man approached Jesus in Mark 1:40, and you were not supposed to approach someone while being unclean. The law of God said so. In Leviticus 13, if a priest confirmed you had a skin disease, you would dwell outside the camp until it was resolved. If you were close to crossing paths with someone, you were supposed to dishevel your hair and clothes and shout “Unclean!” so that people had fair warning. But the skin-diseased man in Mark 1 approached Jesus anyway. He fell before him and said, “If you will, you can make me clean” (1:40). That statement is especially intriguing because no unclean person would fall before an Old Testament priest and ask for cleansing. Priests could diagnose, but they could not heal. What was this man doing? The man had heard about what Jesus could do. In Mark 1:32, Jesus healed the sick at Capernaum (1:32–34). Word continued to spread, and more people came searching for Jesus the next day (1:36–37). Later, Jesus went throughout all of...

These are the same Aaron and Moses to whom the LORD said, “Bring out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt according to their armies”  (Ex. 6:26). Here we have a genealogy that ends in the two great patriarchs, Moses and Aaron. It is put here to validate their lineage, to show that they were Israelites—bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh—whom they were sent to deliver, and were raised up from among their brethren. Just as Jesus Christ was to be prophet and priest, the Redeemer and Lawgiver of the people of Israel, so were Moses and Aaron, as prophet and priest respectively. There are a few peculiarities in this genealogy. One is that only Reuben and Simeon are mentioned along with Levi, the tribe of Moses and Aaron. Some scholars believe that these two were mentioned by Moses because they were left under marks of infamy by their dying father: Reuben for his incest and Simeon (along with Levi) for the murder of the Shechemites. Therefore, Moses wanted to honor t...

English: Israel Enters the Promised Land, as in Joshua 3:5-17, illustration from a Bible card published between 1896 and 1913 by the Providence Lithograph Company (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Joshua 3:13 The Jordan River was at flood stage . So did his people worry when God said, “Have the priests pick up the Ark of the Covenant and walk into the water”? Did the priests wonder if they could hold onto the Ark in the swirling water? Did they think they would be swept away and lose their lives? No matter, God told them what would happen when they did what he said. They had to have enough faith to put their feet in the water.  And that’s when the miracle happened. Somewhere way up stream the waters were cut off and piled up. Even more miraculous, the ground in the river bed was dry. The priests walked to the middle of the river and stood there until all the people crossed over into the Promised Land . When God is the architect, we are the workers, using our hands, our feet, ...

English: Damian. "Jesus Christ and St. John the Apostle". A detail of the Last Supper fresco from Ubisi, Georgia (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The Lord said to Moses , "You shall also make a basin of bronze, with its stand of bronze, for washing . You shall put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you shall put water in it, with which Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet. When they go into the tent of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn a food offering to the Lord, they shall wash with water, so that they may not die. They shall wash their hands and their feet, so that they may not die. It shall be a statute forever to them, even to him and to his offspring throughout their generations." (Exodus 30:17-21) Right after you were born, the blood and vernix on your body was washed off by a nurse. Have you taken a bath or shower since the day you were born? Of course you have. Our bodies continually become dir...

An aristocratic lady coming out from temple and giving alms. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting , but only to your Father , who is unseen; and your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” ( Matthew 6:17 –18). Roman Catholics are much more diligent about fasting than Protestants —or at least they used to be. The reason for this is that the Catholic Church used to require a partial fast, from meat, every Friday. There were other days of fasting in the Roman calendar as well. Protestant churches, however, have had little to say about fasting. Why is this? The reason lies in the fact that at the time of the Reformation, fasting was connected with the sacrament of penance. In the Roman system, if a person committed a mortal sin, he lost his justification. In order to regain his justification and escape the sentence of...

Image via Wikipedia But this man … received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises” ( Heb. 7:6 ). -  Hebrews 7:4–6 Thus far in the book of Hebrews, we have seen that the greatness of Christ ’s priesthood guarantees the hope of our salvation (6:19–20). And one of the things that makes Christ’s priestly office so great is that He is a priest after the order of Melchizedek (5:6; 7:17). Hebrews 7 gives an extended discussion of the Melchizedekian priesthood. We have seen that Melchizedek resembles Christ because he is a king of righteousness and a king who has neither beginning nor end (vv. 1–3). We have noted that the comparison between the two priest-kings is to be understood in terms of typology and not as a literal, exact equivalence. Though typologies are not to be understood in a strictly literal sense, that in no way renders them foreign to the original context from which they are drawn. Typologies always take seriously the original contexts of t...

Image via Wikipedia But this man … received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises” ( Heb. 7:6 ). -  Hebrews 7:4–6 Thus far in the book of Hebrews, we have seen that the greatness of Christ ’s priesthood guarantees the hope of our salvation (6:19–20). And one of the things that makes Christ’s priestly office so great is that He is a priest after the order of Melchizedek (5:6; 7:17). Hebrews 7 gives an extended discussion of the Melchizedekian priesthood. We have seen that Melchizedek resembles Christ because he is a king of righteousness and a king who has neither beginning nor end (vv. 1–3). We have noted that the comparison between the two priest-kings is to be understood in terms of typology and not as a literal, exact equivalence. Though typologies are not to be understood in a strictly literal sense, that in no way renders them foreign to the original context from which they are drawn. Typologies always take seriously the original contexts of t...