Dr Paul Allen

  “But Michael the archangel, when contending with the Devil, debating concerning the body of Moses, did not dare to pronounce an irreverent judgment, but he said, “May the Lord reprove you” (JUDE 9,  But doesn’t the Old Testament say that only the Lord was with Moses when he died on Mount Nebo, just outside the promised land of Canaan? “And [the Lord] buried [Moses] in the valley, in the land of Moab … but no one knows the place of his burial to this day” (DEUT 34:6 ESV).  There is no mention of Satan, Michael, or an epic battle. Who (or what) is Jude’s source? New Testament source material usually came from the Old Testament, but not always. Sometimes New Testament writers drew upon non-biblical documents.1 For example, Paul cites the Greek poets Aratus and Cleanthes to support his claim that the God of Israel is responsible for the entire created order (Acts 17:28). Accessing the sources of the first century AD can be challenging. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson’s Comment...

Where did evil come from if God is good and created all things good? In this episode of What in the Word?, Phillip Cary joins Kirk E. Miller to explore Genesis 3 and the origins of evil. Where did the serpent—this cunning adversary and deceiver—come from? And how could Adam and Eve, who created good and without sin, fall into its temptation? What does the Bible teach about God’s relationship to evil?

Without question, one of the strangest verses in the Bible is Jude 9: But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” Questions have long swirled around this verse and the death and burial of Moses in general. The canonical record of the death and burial of Moses is shrouded in mystery in Deuteronomy 34. Verse 1 says, “Now Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, opposite Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan.”  A few verses later, verses 5-6 add, “So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-Peor, but no man knows his burial place to this day.” After seeing the Promised Land from afar, Moses died alone in the presence of the Lord. Then something mysterious happened: Moses did ...

Even though we may not be able to fully explain why Satan came into being, we know he does exist, and he was there from the beginning of mankind because he tempted Adam and Eve in the third chapter of Genesis.  We also know that Jesus commanded “the unclean spirits, and they obey him” (Mark 1:27), Which is a fantastic statement. He said to Satan in the wilderness, “Be gone!” and he was gone (Matthew 4:10). And we know at the end of history, God will throw Satan into the lake of fire so that he can’t influence God’s people anymore or harm us anymore (Revelation 20:10). So, from all this, we know God could have bound Satan completely the moment he fell or at any point in history in between. We know he doesn’t because, in the end, the whole New Testament is telling the story of Satan’s activity in this world and how he deceives, how he tempts, and how we need to do warfare against the principalities and powers. “Seeing and savoring the superior beauty of Christ is the way we defeat th...

Thinking and writing about the devil is strange. I would argue that teaching about the devil has been largely neglected in the church. While there may be the more obvious danger of the devil’s being blamed for all sorts of our sins and living lives in fear of the evil one, in my experience that hasn’t been our great temptation as a church.  Our danger is being unaware of the devil’s schemes and being very naive in our thinking about his role and place. One of the reasons that I think it’s important for us to think these issues through is that it again reminds us that we are dealing with the supernatural. I fear that even in our proclamation of the gospel, we shy away from the spiritual realities of our faith. Christianity at its heart is unashamedly supernatural.  Even a cursory reading of the Gospels demonstrates this with angels, healings, demons, miracles, and resurrection. In seeking to make the gospel more palatable, we may easily downplay the supernatural.  Ephesian...

What is Spiritual Warfare? 2 Thessalonians 1:4 –  Therefore, we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and the afflictions you are enduring. I heard a person who was in the military once share a harrowing war story with me. He and his men were deployed in Iraq and on patrol when they walked into an ambush. Enemies had set a trap for them that they unfortunately could not escape. They were surrounded on all sides, taking heavy enemy fire, low on supplies and ammunition, and had to settle in for an extended firefight. Thankfully, their communications still worked, and they could call for support. Exhausted, beat up, stressed out, and on alert, the soldiers needed to keep fighting to hold their position until reinforcements showed up, put down the enemy, and got them safely home. The Bible talks a lot about spiritual warfare, which has a lot in common with actual combat. For the Church, we are surrounded by the Enemy ...

It has become somewhat passé to complain about the Walt Disney Company. Once a titan of American storytelling, Disney has gone from producing culture to pushing the cultural revolution. Disney has pushed for abortion across the U.S. and offers employees full coverage for expenses if they wish to travel to procure an abortion and has championed the LGBT agenda, as well. Their content reflects this. They have promoted a drag queen special for children; launched a bisexual teen character who dabbles in witchcraft; and has committed to pushing LGBT characters in its content. In short, Disney is participating in the degradation of American culture and the indoctrination of the young audience they seek to reach. Again, that will not be news to many of my readers. This transformation has been going on for some time, and I suspect we’ve only seen the start of it. Soon enough, we’ll be getting LGBT blockbusters featuring princes falling in love with princes, princesses romancing princesses, and...

Nick Batzig Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is one of the most ancient and revered military manuals in all of human history. In it, Sun Tzu set out what he believed to be the “essentials of military victory.” He wrote: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”1 Many of the seventeenth-century Puritans also emphasized the importance of knowing the enemy and his tactics when they approached the subject of spiritual warfare. For instance, in his Precious Remedies against Satan’s Devices, Thomas Brooks highlighted “the essentials” of spiritual warfare: “Christ, the Scripture, your own hearts, and Satan’s devices, are the four prime things that should be first and most studied and searched. If any cast off the study of these, they cannot be safe here, nor happy hereafter.”2 I...

Anthony Costello A dead Christian is of no value to the Devil. Only a Christian still alive is worth Satan’s time and efforts. This is an obvious truth, assuming the particular, physically deceased person was indeed an actual man or woman of God. Upon the physical death of the truly faithful and genuinely regenerated person, they enter Christ's presence and are forever secure from Satan’s attacks.  But for those who still live, they are in the Devil’s crosshairs and ever susceptible to his attrition. The Devil’s plan of attack is always twofold: to discourage the true believer from being effective for God’s kingdom and to use the false convert to destroy the Church from within. As to the latter aim, the Devil realizes that the best and most effective way to attack God’s Church on earth is through those who consider themselves “Christians” but who deep down know they are not (Acts 5:1-8).  Or, the Devil can work through those who are so self-deluded, they genuinely believe them...

  The word “Babel” means “gateway to a god” and sounds like the Hebrew word balal, which means “confusion” (Gen. 10:8–10; 11:1–9). In Scripture, Babylon symbolizes the world system man has built in defiance of God. Jerusalem and Babylon are contrasting cities: One is the chosen city of God, the other the wicked city of man. The city of God will last forever, but the rebellious city of man will ultimately be destroyed (Rev. 14:8; 16:19; 17–18). God musters His army (Isa. 13:1–5, 17–18). God is sovereign. He is able to call any army He desires, to accomplish any task He assigns. He can summon them with a whistle (7:18), or by using leaders to raise a banner, shout, and beckon to the soldiers (13:2). In this case, God is mustering the army of the Medes (v. 17; 21:2); and He calls them “My sanctified ones.” Even though they did not believe in Jehovah God, the Medes were set apart by God to do His holy work. God punishes His enemies (Isa. 13:6–22). The city of Babylon was completely des...

By Jonathon Aigner The war against the once-beloved “Onward, Christian Soldiers” is decades old. When the United Methodist Church was revising its hymnal in the mid-80s, it made the mistake of trying to drop this hymn from what would soon become the current United Methodist Hymnal. Good Methodists and Methodists are good people. They started a war of their own, essentially inundating the hymnal committee with correspondence which, according to Carlton Young, made it “impossible for the committee to go on with its work.” Suitable for those lovely Methodist saints. Other denominations have long since dropped it like a hot potato. “Onward” hasn’t been in a mainline Presbyterian hymnal for 50 years. Other traditions still have it in their hymnals, like the Episcopal church, but I would guess that few Episcopal churches would use it lest they make those among them with little Scripture knowledge uncomfortable. On the one hand, I understand how militaristic language can be complex. It can be...

When Mark’s Gospel opens, Mark highlights the ministry of John the Baptist (1:2–8). But then Mark zeros in on the baptism (1:9–11) and temptation of Jesus (1:12–13) since those things preceded Jesus’s public ministry (1:14–15). The language of Jesus’s temptations fascinates me because Mark mentions the presence of wild animals, and Mark is the only Gospel writer who does this. 12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him. Why would the presence of “wild animals” be worth mentioning? First of all, the location of the wilderness explains the presence of wild animals. The wilderness was understood as a place for wild animals. The opening verses of Mark’s Gospel introduced the “wilderness” idea (1:3, quoting from Isa. 40). John the Baptist was baptizing “in the wilderness” (1:4). Now in 1:12, we read that the Spirit drove Jesus out into “the...

Many people approach sin in an odd way. Most simply seek to avoid dealing with sin as long as they possibly can. Others attempt to get rid of their sin by cleaning themselves up (Luke 11:24–25).  A real and lasting solution, however, required Christ to come and conquer the one who conquered man. It is only in this way that believers can live in the full enjoyment of deliverance from the guilt and power of sin.  It was not sufficient for Christ merely to lay down His life in order to atone for the sins of His people—He also had to conquer the evil one. The Apostle John intimated as much when he wrote, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). The conquest of the evil one in the death of Jesus is an essential part of the work of redemption in that it results in liberty and victory for those for whom Christ died (1 John 2:14). After the creation of the world, Satan wove a web of deception and lies in order to lead our first parents i...