Dr Paul Allen

QUESTION:   The Book of Isaiah describes events of the Babylonian Exile and even mentions Cyrus by name. Given that the prophet Isaiah lived centuries before the Babylonian Exile, that ought to be surprising. Biblical scholars have looked at changes in style, vocabulary and historical interest to establish that the Book of Isaiah was originally three separate books written by three separate authors over a long period of time. Isaiah, son of Amoz, only wrote chapters 1–39, apart from some alterations and insertions within those chapters. Two other, anonymous authors wrote the remainder of the book. Another instance is the Book of Daniel, which appears to predict quite accurately the events immediately before 167 BCE. Still, neither mentions what happens immediately after that time nor is it at all accurate regarding the history of the Babylonian Exile, the time during which the story is set. Biblical scholars have established that the book must have been written around 167 BCE, as i...

Davy Ellis Anonymity is one of my fears in ministry, and I suspect my fellow pastors share my worry. We marvel at men like Luther, Owen, Spurgeon, and Packer. We spend seminary reading D. A. Carson, Thomas Schreiner, Alec Motyer, and T. Desmond Alexander. These giants have written numerous books, preached to thousands, or changed the course of the gospel cause in their time. Then we look at ourselves. We pastor churches of maybe 100. Anything we write will likely be read only by our mothers and spouses. A hundred years from now, we may be forgotten. In a thousand years, we will be forgotten. We feel anonymous. If we dwell on that thought for too long, we soon wonder what the point is. First Chronicles 1–9 can help. Desert of Names Preachers and laypeople alike often overlook the books of Chronicles. One reason is the long list of hard-to-pronounce, largely unknown names in the first nine chapters. There are about 200 names in Chapter 1 alone. Mark Dever designated these chapters a “ver...

For my days are consumed like smoke … ( Ps. 102:3). One of humanity’s greatest dilemmas is its relationship to time. Whether we live or die, time continues its unrelenting cadence. Sometimes it seems as if we have been discarded into life’s vast ocean, to drift without a beginning or an end. Often it seems as if all we have is the here and now. Hoping for something more, we ask, “Is this all there is?” Secularism quickly answers in the affirmative—all we can be certain of is the present. Secularism’s short-sighted philosophy produces grave moral consequences. If all we have is the here and now, then why stop and consider the consequences of our actions, especially in relation to eternity? The Bible tells us we are responsible for our actions; yet, like secularism , it does not deny the transience of man: “… all the glory of man is as the flower of the grass. The grass withers and its flower falls away” ( 1 Peter 1:24); “… he is like the beasts that perish” (Ps. 49:12); “… they ...

Add caption A close friend called to tell me that I had a new brother. After nearly 20 years as four sons and one daughter, my family scratched another tally mark in the ledger column already chock-full of boys. “Have you heard about Jessah?” she asked. “She just announced on Facebook that she’s transgender .” My new brother, it would seem, is my sister. Jessah is 19 years old, 12 years younger than I am. I was in the hospital when she was born. I spent my middle-school years changing her diapers. She beamed with pride and excitement when my then-fiancée Becca asked her to be a bridesmaid at our wedding, and during the ceremony she looked just as beautiful and twice as proud as the older girls. Becca offered advice when she was learning to put on makeup, when puberty arrived, when she first started noticing and crushing on boys. Today, though, Jessah identifies as a man. “I am not female,” she declared in her coming out announcement. She is legally changing her name to Jace and ...