Dr Paul Allen

Luke describes the rift that opened between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark in his typical understated way: “There arose a sharp disagreement so that they separated from each other” ( Acts 15:39 ). No elaboration, no circling back later in Acts to tell us how this story ended. We watch Barnabas sail to Cyprus with John Mark while Paul and Silas head to Syria and Cilicia. Really?  Paul and Barnabas ? Friends whose names go together, like David and Jonathan or Peter and John? These brothers who had spent a year together teaching the new Gentile converts in Antioch and then risked life and limb together for the gospel on that first missionary journey? These colleagues became the first missionary team at the particular direction of the Holy Spirit himself ( Acts 13:2 )? And they couldn’t reconcile a disagreement over John Mark? We can be left wondering, If Paul and Barnabas couldn’t stay together, what hope do we have when difficult and painful disagreements arise in our churches and ...

Division and discord are growing sicknesses in our day. We’re separated into ever-fracturing tribes, and the “us versus them” mentality has developed a gravitational pull. What’s more, talking heads who tell us our problems and worries come from those we disagree with saturate the screens in our homes and pockets. The church isn’t safe from the disease of division. Our feeds offer us a steady diet of self-affirming articles that state how this political election or that theological disagreement will make or break us. When the stakes are constantly elevated to do-or-die levels, we justify any tactic that gives “our side” an edge in the war. Denominations, churches, and church members who once enjoyed unity now grow apart. Those we used to march with arm in arm are now at arm’s length. It seems our culture is ever more eager to draw lines in the sand and ever slower to listen with love. As our tribalism grows, our ability to nuance diminishes, and it becomes difficult to pursue Christian...

Do you believe empathy can be spiritually dangerous? I do, and I have tried to explain why and how. And as I have, I have received some criticism (some of it quite fierce). The criticism is not surprising. Most of us have categories for the way that certain passions (such as fear or anger) can become sinful; articles about “the sin of anger” or “the sin of fear” make sense to us. But in the modern world, empathy is viewed as an almost unalloyed good, and therefore the notion that it could be dangerous, and even sinful, may be shocking. Nevertheless, the interactions and criticisms have been both illuminating and instructive. For instance, one group of responses sounds like this: How can you call empathy a sin? Empathy is Christlike care for suffering people that seeks to deeply enter into their pain in order to help them. By criticizing empathy, you must be advocating for an aloof, uncaring, and unchristian response to suffering people. At a basic level, this criticism of my argument i...

I’ve been reading through the book of Exodus again. When I look at all that Moses went through as a leader, it tends to make me feel a bit better about my own challenges. This time as I read I paid close attention to every time the Israelites grumbled against or argued with Moses in the early days of their exodus from Egypt… and it was a lot! But here is what is interesting to me… each time they grumbled or argued with him, Moses went to God. He didn’t argue with them. He didn’t try to reason with them. He didn’t try to explain himself or his decisions. He didn’t try to make them happy. He went to God. Moses got what I often forget – He knew that he was simply an instrument for God. Moses understood that he was leading these people for and with God. I get this wrong all the time. I’ve never considered myself a people-pleaser, and yet if I’m honest, I feel a whole lot better about my leadership if people like me and like how I’m leading them. Moses didn’t seem to care what p...