Dr Paul Allen

I thought I understood culture until I moved abroad and went grocery shopping in Asia. I couldn’t read any labels, so I was painstakingly selecting each item, relying on pictures and translation apps. Suddenly, an elderly woman came over, pulled a bottle of dish soap out of my shopping cart, and spoke rapid Chinese as she wagged her finger at me. She returned my selected soap to the shelf, picked up a different brand, and put it in my cart. I was speechless and indignant. What in the world? How dare someone invades my privacy and replace an item in my shopping cart? Now that I’ve been in Asia for more than six years I better understand what was happening—not only with the elderly woman but also in my soul. Culture is like the proverbial iceberg. We may think we understand our culture, but much remains below the surface. We might not see it until someone crashes into our subconscious cultural beliefs. Sure, culture affects what we eat, where we live, and the clothing we wear. But cultur...

The danger of erroneous interpretation of Scripture is not new in our day. The Apostle Paul instructed a young Timothy, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15). There is a right way and a wrong way to handle the Word of God. Unfortunately, our era continues to be littered with those who may find themselves ashamed because they have mishandled the Word of Truth. Take, for example, Mark 16:17–18: And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly poisons, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover. Although the authenticity of this passage is debated, some have taken these words and used them to justify the practice of literally handling deadly snakes in the midst of the congregation ...

Some folks seem to have the spiritual gift of pointing out everything you and the church could do better. Others have impossibly high expectations that despite your good intentions you never seem to meet. Still others are just plain ornery: cantankerous old (or young) cusses that fit the profile of grumpy goats, better than cuddly sheep. And speaking of sheep, well, you’ve probably read enough about them to know it’s not a flattering metaphor. In short, churches are full of individuals with flawed personalities, irksome quirks, psychological disorders , and good old-fashioned sins. Sometimes, after discussing some difficult situation, my wife and I look knowingly at one other and say (tongue in cheek), “Everybody’s weird except us.” So, how do you deal with difficult people? 1. Remember they are  people . That they’re  people  is more important than that they’re  difficult . Sometimes we can get so focused on the problems people bring to us, the inconve...

Image via Wikipedia If we think the  Bible  teaches universal salvation , we may arrive at a false sense of assurance by reasoning as follows: Everybody is saved. I am a body. Therefore, I am saved. Or, if we think salvation is gained by our own good works and we are further deluded into believing that we possess good works, we will have a false assurance of salvation . To have sound assurance, we must understand that our salvation rests on the merit of Christ alone, which is appropriated to us when we embrace Him by genuine  faith . If we understand that, the remaining question is, " Do I have the genuine faith necessary for salvation?" Again, two more things must be understood and analyzed properly. The first is doctrinal. We need a clear understanding of what constitutes genuine saving faith.  If we conceive of saving faith as existing in a vacuum, never yielding the fruit of works of obedience, we have confused saving faith with dead faith, which cannot sav...