Dr Paul Allen

Cover of Basic Christianity The love of God in our culture has been purged of anything the culture finds uncomfortable. The love of God has been sanitized, democratized, and above all sentimentalized. I do not think that what the Bible says about the love of God can long survive at the forefront of our thinking if it is abstracted from the sovereignty of God, the holiness of God, the wrath of God, the providence of God, or the personhood of God—to mention only a few nonnegotiable elements of basic Christianity . There is a powerful tendency “to present God through characterizations of his inner states, with an emphasis on his emotions, which closely resemble those of human beings.…God is more likely to ‘feel’ than to ‘act,’ to ‘think’ than to ‘say.’ With such sentimentalizing of God multiplying in churches, it does not take much to see how difficult maintaining a biblical doctrine of the love of God can be. Some elements of the larger and still developing patterns of postmoderni

The Children of Israel Crossing the Jordan (illustration by Gustave Doré) (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had been encircled for seven days” (Heb. 11:30). Forty years had elapsed since the Israelites refused to enter the Promised Land . That unbelieving generation had perished in the wilderness. Now Joshua was leading a new generation into the land. The first obstacle they faced was Jericho—a well- fortified city that was near the mouth of the Jordan River . Some city walls of that day were wide enough at the top to allow two chariots to ride side by side. That was probably true of Jericho because of its strategic location. That, coupled with the caliber of its army, made the city virtually impregnable—especially to unsophisticated Israelites, who lacked military training. But what is impossible for man is easy for God. And the stage was set for Him to demonstrate His power and for the Israelites to demonstrate their faith and hum