Dr Paul Allen

A few years ago Wayne shared that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and you can read his godly response to this news which he shared on   Desiring God . I’ve long recommended Wayne’s books on theology, and cannot emphasize enough the importance of learning systematic theology. Based on conversations I’ve had, I fear that many believers in churches today understand very little Bible doctrine. I want to encourage you to discover the joy of learning. I recommend not only Wayne Grudem’s large  Systematic Theology , but also his abridged  Bible Doctrine . This article from him is a great introduction to what systematic theology is, and why it matters. — Randy Alcorn What’s Systematic Theology and Why Bother? By Wayne Grudem Systematic theology means answering the question: “What does the whole Bible say to us today about any given topic?” It means searching the Bible to find all the verses pertaining to a given topic of study. Then, we put all the verse...

Holy Trinity Icon Ziryanskaya. Икона «Зырянская Троица», (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) In 1991 John Piper and Wayne Grudem edited what is one of the most influential and significant books of that decade:  Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood.  The book’s goal was to show that egalitarianism —the idea that men and women should not have any role differences in marriage or in church—is unbiblical. Instead, Christians should embrace complimentarianism –the idea that God designed the sexes to compliment each other through different roles in both marriage and church life. Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood  dismantled egalitarianism for a generation of evangelicals. Grudem and Piper used a barrage of arguments, hunted down obscure Greek words, and built an air-tight case that men and women are of equal worth/value/dignity/honor, but have different roles. Of the book’s many postulates, one of the more lasting came from Thomas Schreiner (who at the...

Icon of the Pentecost (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “Charismatic Counterfeits: Do the Modern Gifts Meet the Biblical Standard?” That subtitle really defines our topic for this session. We want to consider the way in which the contemporary charismatic movement defines key spiritual gifts. And then we will compare the charismatic version with the Word of God to see how they match up. As a side note, I want to note that much of the material we will cover today parallels what you will find in the  Strange Fire  book. I mention that at the outset, so that if you are interested in doing further study on this critical topic, you can do so by reading what Dr. MacArthur has published in that important resource. Definition of Terms Now, before we begin, it is important that we define several terms. If you were in my seminar yesterday afternoon, this part of the seminar will sound familiar. But I promise this is a different seminar, it is just important that we begin by making s...