Dr Paul Allen

Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglican Church  (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Tim Challies writes: There are several themes in today’s “I went to heaven” books: Each of the people experienced heaven after dying a natural death. In every case, the soul had left the body so the person was clinically and spiritually dead. After the experience of heaven, each of the people was restored to life so that the soul returned to the body and the body was no longer clinically or spiritually dead. Each of the people describes as much as they can remember and does so in order to offer encouragement and in order to validate what the Bible says. There is no biblical precedent for experiences of this kind. Let me look to each of the biblical passages. Revelation The Revelation is unique in being New Testament apocalyptic literature. This genre is prophetic, meaning that it is inspired by God in order to show what will take place in the end times, tying together past, pres

Heaven Is For Real Embarking on a short tour of the afterlife is all the rage, it seems. Don Piper got it started with  90 Minutes in Heaven , a really bad book that sold millions of copies.  Then there was  23 Minutes in Hell , another bestseller and another awful book. And now hot on their heels comes  Heaven Is For Real: A Little Boy ’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back .  It’s currently sitting atop the  New York Times  list of bestsellers and has over a half million copies in print. I wonder if I’m the only one who finds it a mite suspicious that now that these books are selling like proverbial hotcakes, more and more people find that God wants them to tell their stories of heaven and hell. Probably not. Heaven Is For Real  is written by pastor Todd Burpo and it tells the story of his son Colton who, at age 4, visited heaven. His visit came while he was on the operating table after suffering a burst appendix.  He told his parents his story several mont