Dr Paul Allen

Jesus was pretty stern in his treatment of the Pharisees. In contrast to his usual gentleness, he rebuked them in the hardest, most offensive terms on multiple occasions. Matt 15, 7-9: “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:  ‘“These people honour me with their lips,  but their hearts are far from me.  They worship me in vain;  their teachings are merely human rules.” Matt 23, 15-33: “Woe to you, law teachers and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are…Woe to you, blind guides…you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices – mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy and faithfulness…You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel…You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of t...

  Saint Augustine answered that question at its root when he wrote, “You have made us for Yourself and [therefore] our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” If God has made us and designed us to be happy with him, then nothing else can take his place. God is the food our spirits need to eat. Other things will make our body happy (Eccl 2:24; 3:13; 5:18–20), but not our spirit, our soul, our true self. Other things will make us happy for a while, but not for long. Other things will make us happy on a superficial level, but not deep down. In the Bible, we read that all happiness, all joy, all beauty come from God (James 1:17). The joy of friendship, the beauty of nature, the happiness of human love were all created by God and designed to reflect his joy and beauty, to carry a little of his joy to us as the air carries the light of the sun.  Every joy you ever feel is a reflection of God. God is not one of the many sources of joy, for “religious people” only (whoever they a...

On the outside, Chloe appears to have it all together. She is single, has a career, and is fairly active in her local church. But she’s lonely, disenchanted by her career, and feels detached from his church. The shell that her peers admire conceals her discontentment and joyless Christianity . Chloe had envisioned a different life for herself. By now, she thought she’d be in her prime, but she’d found herself in a pit of misery. She thought she’d be married, still connected to her college friends, raising a family, and mentoring younger Christian women. But her present reality disappointed her expectations. Her discontentment has led her down a dark path of sin, searching for relief but only finding death. Chloe’s only hope of curing her discontentment and unhappiness is learning the art of contentment and embracing a biblical view of God . Those two things are essential for her joy. It’s Not You, It’s Me Chloe represents many Christians struggling to cope with the hand the...