Dr Paul Allen

I suspect most of us have heard the 1981 song by the band Journey, “Don’t Stop Believin’.” It came into a second life around 2007, and for the last fifteen years, it has reached a level of popularity it didn’t first have. The song has a memorable tune that makes the main line, “Don’t stop believin’” (which doesn’t come till the last minute), seem so powerful. Yet if you analyze the words — as a pastor who likes classic rock might be prone to do — you find out how disappointing and thin the lyrics are. For one, “Don’t stop believing” in what? What’s the object of belief? The story behind the song is that one band member “went to the band with the iconic line ‘Don’t stop believin’; hold on to that feeling’ with the vague idea that Steve Perry [the voice] would want to sing it. Perry loved it,” reports one site, “and the band went on to improvise and jam until they had dialled in a workable version of the song.” A side note about the line “Just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit...

Fear of God Then there’s the other fear: The fear that it might be true after all. I respect those atheists who’ve been honest about it. Thomas Nagel is an eminent professor (now emeritus) of law and philosophy at New York University. He famously wrote, I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that. My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about human life, including everything about the human mind …. This i...

“Do you know the most challenging verse in the Bible? It’s where Jesus said, ‘According to your faith, be it done to you.’” And my friend repeated those words slowly: according to your faith. What a holy challenge and invitation! “Where is your faith?” Perhaps He is speaking to you as well? Let me share some of them here with you. What is Faith? Faith is taking God at His Word. Faith is saying, “I trust You.” Faith is not being moved by circumstances, feelings or opinions. Faith is believing in God and God alone. Faith gets out of the boat at the Lord’s command, ready to walk on water, and faith does not sink. Without faith, it is impossible to please Him. The double-minded man receives nothing from the Lord. Mountains only move when we believe and do not doubt. It is the prayer offered in faith that makes the sick person well. According to Your Faith To the blind, Jesus asked: “Do you believe that I can heal you?” To the distressed father of the demonized boy, Jesus said: “All things ...

As the Apostle John comes to the end of his gospel, having just described the events of Jesus’ resurrection, he pauses to state his purpose in writing his account of Jesus’ life. He declares, “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30–31). John states what Jesus and His Apostles consistently declare: the hope found in coming to Jesus is nothing less than life in His name—a life that is new, abundant, and eternal in Him (John 10:10; Eph. 4:4–5; Rom. 5:20–21). How do we receive this abundant new life? John puts it succinctly: by believing that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. But what exactly does John mean by believing that Jesus is the Messiah? What is involved in such a belief? This question is not merely academic or exegetical. As a pastor, I have watched many wrestle wi...

Unless you are an evangelical you cannot go to Heaven. That’s a pretty radical statement, isn’t it ? Some might find it hateful, others ignorant, but you need to know that it is absolutely true. Now that I have your attention it is important to define what an evangelical is. Merriam-Webster defines evangelical in three ways. The first is: as someone who is in agreement with the Christian gospel especially as it is presented in the four Gospels.  The second simply: as someone who claims to be protestant.   And the third: as someone who emphasizes salvation by faith in the atoning death of Jesus Christ through personal conversion, the authority of Scripture, and the importance of preaching as contrasted with ritual. Sadly, the world has hijacked the term .  As they have done with many other terms that we have always taken for granted, such as marriage, male or female amongst many others, they have done so with the term evangelical. Many associate the word with politics...

Arminianism is an extremely defective and weak theology. It has serious consequences and ramifications for the church in general and for the Christian individual in particular. Are they saved? I always like to say yes, but by a happy inconsistency. If they really believe what they say they believe, then I don’t think they would be saved. Arminians affirm justification by faith alone, the work of Christ, and all of those orthodox things. However, if you ask them why it is that they’re saved and their neighbor isn’t, they will say that God gave grace both to them and to their neighbor but they said yes to that grace and cooperated with it while their neighbor said no and rejected it. I say to my Arminian friends:  “So, you did the good thing and your neighbor did the bad thing. You have something to boast about, but they have only sin. You have done the right thing, but they’ve done the wrong thing. Your work, in the final analysis, is the decisive factor for your being saved, where...

Can you imagine being Noah and seeing that first rain drop?  What do you think he felt? Relief? Surprise? Joy? Maybe a mix of all three. Perhaps he felt great sorrow as well, as he realized that the people he so faithfully preached to, for around a hundred years, were about to be crushed by the wrath of God. I think about Noah often.  He was all alone. Just him, his wife and his three boys.  He was the only man on earth who had a relationship with God. The whole world lived in utter rebellion against Him. (Gen. 6:11).  They must have thought he was crazy. He was building a huge boat, he was saying that rain would make the whole world flood, he was calling people to repentance. He was warning the world about the wrath of God.  And yet no one listened. No one repented. Everyone mocked. Yet Noah kept the faith. And the writer of Hebrews encourages his readers to have faith like Him. He says, By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built a...

  “Repent!” Thus, “John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, ‘Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ ” (Matt. 3:1–2). Again, Peter urged the hearers whose consciences had been ripped open on the day of Pentecost, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 2:38). Later, Paul urged the Athenians to “repent” in response to the message of the risen Christ (Acts 17:30). Yet, on other occasions, the appropriate response to the gospel is, “Believe!” When the Philippian jailer asked Paul what he must do to be saved, the Apostle told him, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). But there is no mystery or contradiction here. Further on in Acts 17, we discover that precisely where the response of repentance was required, those who were converted are described as believing (Acts 17:30, 34). Any confusion is surely resolved by the fact that when Jesus preached “the gospel of God” in Galilee, He urged His hearers, ...

We are living in very uncertain times. I’m sure we are all scared and going through difficulties that we never imagined before. People are worried about, the jobs, about their bank accounts, about their health, and about their loved ones. If you’ve been to the store lately, you’ve seen some hoarding going on, you’ve seen the empty shelves! What a crazy and scary time to be alive! I hope that throughout the craziness when you put your head down on the pillow you ask yourself this question? What has really changed? Yes, there seems to be a threat to our stability. But what really can we control in life?  Someone in Italy recently said that this CoronaVirus situation has shown them just how strong they are, but is that true? I would say the opposite! This has shown just how frail we are as people. And really how little we really can control in life. We can’t control other people. We can’t control what country we’re born in who our family will be what colour our hair is, ...

René Descartes had some trouble believing in things. “I think therefore I am,” he said. Which is why it’s so interesting that he supported the notion of the luminiferous ether. Ether (well, either ether or æther) is a substance that Descartes believed filled all of outer space. He described it as invisible, weightless, and causing no friction or any other effect that would prove its being. The idea was embraced by Newton and every other scientist, until the late 19th century, when it was proven that it simply did not exist. But even two decades after ether had been incontestably shown to be no more than a figment of the imagination, and four full years after Einstein had rejected the notion of ether, scientists like British physicist J.J. Thompson still insisted, “The ether is not a fantastic creation of the speculative philosopher; it is as essential to us as the air we breathe.” Humans believe in the strangest things. We have never seen oxygen, but we have no problem believ...

“And for this cause, God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.” ( 2 Thessalonians 2:11 ) This is a startling declaration! Why would God want to deceive people and cause them to believe a lie? The “cause” that would activate such an extreme decision on God’s part must be very serious. The preceding verse states it plainly. It is “because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved” ( 2 Thessalonians 2:10 ). Because they “resist the truth” ( 2 Timothy 3:8 ), they will “believe the lie”! The specific context refers to those who elect to follow the coming “man of sin,” but the principle is timeless. It tells us that God’s attitude toward men is determined by their love of the truth rather than by their knowledge of the truth. When people love God’s truth, there is no limit to the amount of truth and blessing they may receive from God. Note the attitude of the writer of Psalm 119: “How sweet are thy words unto my taste!” “Thy testimonies...

One comment that Christian pastors sometimes hear from people they are counseling is that it would be easier for them to have a strong faith if they could see God doing the same kinds of miracles today as are recorded in the Bible. The unspoken assumption is that seeing is believing—that the people who lived in Jesus' day found themselves more readily trusting Him because they could see His great works. www.hopecollege.com Such comments show the need for a closer reading of Scripture, for there are many cases where seeing great miracles didn't move observers to faith.  For example, John 11 records Jesus' raising Lazarus from the dead—a convincing sign if there ever was one. Yet the authorities took the miracle as a reason to oppose Jesus, not to believe in Him (vv. 45-53). Scripture also records occasions when even God's people experienced disbelief after seeing many miracles. Consider Joshua 7, which records what happened at Ai not long after the Israelites con...