Dr Paul Allen

Peter said to the “elect exiles” — that is, to Christians scattered throughout the Roman Empire — “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” ( 1 Peter 2:9 ). www.hopecollege.com He meant it as an enormous encouragement for a tiny, beleaguered, persecuted minority in a vast sea of unbelief and growing hostility. The adversaries may seem powerful and numerous and dangerous and dominant. But look again. You are God ’s chosen ones: “a people for his own possession.” O dear suffering Christians, Peter would say, do you feel what that means? Revel in being God’s chosen ones! There are so many reasons! 1. Your faith is not the basis of God’s choosing you, but the result of it. This means that your faith is a wonder — more wonderful than any of the seven wonders of the world. Jesus said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you” ( John 15:16 ). And there was a deeper choosing going on here than just the selection of the Twelve. We know ...

Anybody who has ever read the Bible has struggled with parts that have confused them. This should not surprise us, but rather we should expect it for a number of reasons. But before we look at these, we should note that Christians also believe in what has been called the clarity of Scripture .  This means that the most important concepts in Scripture are clear and understandable to those who read it in dependence upon God and who humbly desire to understand it, believe it, and follow it. Psalm 19:7 says, “The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple” (see also Psalm 119:130). So even though there may be some things in Scripture that are confusing, the parts that are vital to understand can be readily understood by God’s design. The first reason the Bible can sometimes be confusing is because it is the record of God’s thoughts and ways. As we read it, we are trying to better understand God himself. The problem is that our finite human minds are ultimately...

It was October, 312. A young general who had the allegiance of all the Roman troops from Britain and Gaul was marching toward Rome to challenge Maxentius, another claimant to the imperial throne. As the story goes, General Constantine looked up and saw a cross of light in the sky. An inscription read, “In this conquer.” The superstitious soldier was already beginning to reject the Roman deities in favor of a single god. His father had worshiped a supreme sun-god. Could this be a favorable omen from that god on the eve of battle? Later, Christ appeared to Constantine in a dream , bearing the same sign, a cross with the top bent over, resembling the Greek letters chi and rho, the first two letters of Christos. The general was instructed to mark this sign on his soldiers’ shields. He did. As promised, Constantine won the battle. It was one of several decisive moments in a quarter century of violent change. If you had left Rome in A.D. 305, to spend twenty years in the desert...

Without the Roman Empire , Christianity might never have spread so successfully. You could say the empire was a tinderbox awaiting the spark of Christian faith . The empire’s unifying elements aided in the expansion of the Gospel: Roman roads made travel easier than it had ever been before; throughout the realm, people spoke Greek; and the mighty Roman army kept peace. As a result of the increased mobility, pockets of migrant craftsmen settled for a time in a major city— Rome , Corinth, Athens, or Alexandria—then moved on to another. Christianity stepped into an open climate, religiously. In a sort of “new age” movement many people had begun to embrace eastern religions—the worship of Isis, Dionysus, Mithras, Cybele, and others. Worshipers searched for new beliefs, but some of these religions had been declared illegal, because they were suspected of offensive rituals. Other faiths were officially recognized—like Judaism, which had enjoyed a protected position since the days of J...

I am not against soccer practices or weekend pastimes. But I do believe that real Christianity is a compelling power so great it gets us beyond such small calculations. The early Christians were caught up into something from beyond this world, something gloriously all-encompassing. Real Christianity is massive. But is that  our  Christianity? Christian conversion is not God sprinkling his pixie-dust blessing on our typical routines. It is a paradigm shift for the whole of our lives, with new categories and new capacities. We see this throughout the New Testament . Ephesians   3:14 –19 is one representative sample. Paul prays three requests for all Christians everywhere: I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith — that you, bein...

Previously, we looked at the word “modest” in the New Testament and walked through  1 Cor. 12:23  and  1 Tim. 2:9  and ended up closing the post with a little discussion of what “ not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire ” meant.   The question arose as to what braided hair with gold and pearls indicated in ancient Roman culture , and the comment was made there is an evangelical myth that such things indicated that a woman was a  prostitute .   I suggested that such was not the case, and today’s post will be the first part of a two-part answer to that question.  In this post we’ll take a look at women’s clothing in Roman culture, and the following post will take a look at women’s hairstyles . Hopefully the next two posts will lay to rest some evangelical myths about hair and clothes in the New Testament era. In Roman culture, one didn’t find the same sort of wild variety in clothing, and little changes in style....