Dr Paul Allen

Dr Andreas Kostenberger argues that before the Bible was written, the Holy Spirit authenticated the Apostles' teaching with signs. He then states that once the Bible canon was closed, the scriptures became the abiding authoritative norm for all believers. The need for signs and wonders ceased, because any such additional miracles would only distract from the uniqueness of the person and work of Jesus, and the apostles' role as the foundation of the church, along with the prophets "With the writing of the New Testament documents and the closing of the biblical canon, the need for miracles ceased."   Andreas Kostenberger My Response:  No—there is no explicit biblical teaching that miracles ceased once the canon was closed. That claim comes from a theological inference , not a statement of Scripture. Below is a careful, fair explanation. 1. What the cessationist argument actually says Classical cessationism argues that signs and wonders had a specific, temporary fu...

  Countdown to Riches  - What It Is (2025) Countdown to Riches is Rhonda Byrne’s new self‑help book focused specifically on wealth and financial mindset . It applies the same Law of Attraction principles popularized in The Secret but narrows them to a 21‑day daily practice plan designed to shift the reader’s thinking from scarcity to wealth‑attracting habits. The exercises include: One of the exercises involves outlining one's desires for money and visualising achieving them.  The Times of India Using affirmations and visualisation techniques to internalise abundance. Goodreads Gratitude practices help reframe your experiences related to money. Medium Byrne asserts that financial struggle stems from thought patterns rather than circumstances and  that changing your mindset will transform your financial outcomes.  I am going to compare "Countdown to Riches" with Christian theology. This is not a personal attack or vilification; this is simply a ...

  What happened to the author of The Secret? Twenty years after the book The Secret made her wealthy beyond imagination, Melbourne’s Rhonda Byrne breaks twenty years of silence with her controversial new wealth guide.  But what was the secret all about? Does the Bible support this? Is this New Age teaching?   Today, I want to compare the contents of the secret with theology. This is not a personal attack or vilification. This essay is a comparison of contents. The Secret and Christian Theology -Comparison & Critique 1. View of Reality The Secret: Reality is governed by an impersonal Law of Attraction . The universe responds mechanically to thoughts and emotions. Christian Theology: Reality is governed by a personal, sovereign God (Ps 115:3; Dan 4:35). God acts according to wisdom, love, justice, and redemptive purpose—not human mental states. Key Difference:  Impersonal force vs. personal God. 2. Source of Power The Secret: Power ...

The theological divide between Christianity and Islam centers on several foundational doctrines that shape how each faith understands God, humanity, and salvation. God’s Nature and Identity Christians express God’s oneness as a divine threeness, while Muslims insist upon a consistent monotheism 1 . Islam presents a God who is “ultimately a God outside of the world, a God who is only Majesty, never Emmanuel, God-with-us” 2 —a conception fundamentally at odds with Christian theology. Additionally, while both traditions affirm God’s mercy, the Bible emphasizes his grace and love in ways that make salvation as a divine gift incomprehensible within an Islamic framework 3 . Christ’s Identity and Redemptive Work The person and work of Jesus represent the sharpest theological divergence. For Christians, Jesus embodies the incarnation of God, the second member of the Trinity, and the sacrificial atonement for humanity’s sins, whereas Muslims regard trinitarianism as blasphemy and interpret “son...

The question of free will has plagued the minds of philosophers, theologians, and ordinary people for millennia. The debate over what free will is and whether we as humans possess such a trait has not abated. If anything, it has increased in recent years. But what does the Bible say?  Can we find any help in God’s Word to answer the question of what it means to freely choose our actions and to be responsible for them? Since the time of the Reformation, the two basic answers that Christians have provided to this question have primarily centred on the theological legacies of Calvinism and Arminianism. The view of free agency associated with Calvinism is called compatibilism. The view advanced by Arminians and others, known as free-will theists, is called libertarian free will. Proponents of libertarian free will offer two planks to their definition of free will. First, for any choice to be truly free, it must be sufficiently unmoored from the constraints of outside causal forces. Tha...

The Westminster Confession of Faith is one of the most important Protestant confessions, for it gave a substantial definition to Reformed theology in the seventeenth century. It is often compared to similar confessions of faith, such as the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Scots Confession, and the Thirty-Nine Articles. There was an internal debate about where to begin a study of Reformed theology: with the doctrine of God or Scripture. Significantly, the Westminster divines began their confessional statement with sacred Scripture. They were concerned about two principles.  One, at the very heart of Christianity, is the concept of divine revelation. Christianity is a revealed religion, constructed not based on speculative philosophy but in response to what God Himself has made manifest. Second is the principle of sola Scriptura, developed by the Reformers.  It acknowledges that the final authority in all matters of theology and in all controversies of faith and...

Does God plan everything ahead of time? If so, does that mean humans lack free will, that we are like robots? Such topics lead to questions about salvation: Does God save only those he’s chosen in advance? And, if so, how is that fair? These are the kind of questions that pop up whenever we broach the doctrine of predestination. These questions are not just extra-biblical speculation. Christians mainly talk about the doctrine of predestination because they’ve encountered it in the Bible. The doctrine of predestination derives from several biblical passages, including Romans 8:28–30 Romans 9:9–23 and Ephesians 1:11Open in Logos Bible Software (if available): “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.”1 To answer our questions correctly, we must first understand some key terms. The different categories used to explain predestination and its related topics, as well as how other...