Dr Paul Allen

At first glance, it seems odd that human acts of any kind could affect God. After all, the distance between the Lord and us is infinitely greater than between us and a worm, a fly, or a slug. Indeed, we are uniquely created in His image. But He is eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, the Creator of the universe, while we are here today and gone tomorrow, full of weakness, corruption, and wickedness. That’s why many atheists and agnostics reject the very concept of the God of the Bible. If such a deity existed, they reason, His last concern would be how human beings lived — unless, of course, He was a petty, mean-spirited, tyrant bully. Otherwise, why would our sins concern Him? But it’s not just atheists and agnostics who have raised this question. It is actually posed in the Bible itself, as Job, amid a tormenting trial, cries out to God, “If I have sinned, what have I done to you, you who see everything we do? Why have you made me your target? Have I become a burden to you?”

There are a few different ways you might answer that question. Depending on how you look at it, you might say that it’s because you accepted Christ or placed your faith in Him at some point. Or you might say that it’s because your parents nurtured you in the faith, so there’s never been a time that you did not believe in God and trust in Christ as your Savior. If you look at it from God’s perspective, you might say that it’s because He elected you to salvation before the foundation of the world and that you came to faith because of His sovereign work in your life. But what if we ask the question differently: Why are you a Christian and not a Jew? If you are like most Christians, you are a gentile, that is, not of Jewish descent or a convert from Judaism. Under the old covenant, gentiles had to become like Jews by marking themselves off from the surrounding nations—literally, in the case of circumcision, and figuratively, by abstaining from common pagan practices and worshiping the God

One of the most common questions a Christian can ask is also one of the most troubling: What does my ongoing sin say about me? The question is common because all Christians deal with ongoing sin and many with patterns of repetitive sin. And the question is troubling because it ushers us into one of the great tensions of Scripture. We know, on the one hand, that “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). And we know, on the other hand, that “no one born of God makes a practice of sinning” (1 John 3:9). Every Christian sins — even every day (Matthew 6:11–12) — yet some practices of sin throw doubt on a person’s claim to be born of God. So, what distinguishes Christians from the world when it comes to sin? Puritan pastor Richard Baxter, writing to “melancholy” (or depressed) Christians, offers one fruitful answer: Remember what comfortable evidence you carry about with you that your sin is not damning while you feel that you love it not but

“I don’t believe in creeds, I believe in Jesus.” That pithy declaration is an example of a creed. Any statement of a belief or expression of a conviction is a creed, even one that avers a total rejection of creeds, notwithstanding the irony and a comical lack of self-awareness. The word creed comes from the Latin “credo” meaning “I believe.” Many creeds commence with the formula, “I believe…” or “We believe…” Throughout church history, Christians have articulated their convictions of truth in statements of faith. As the hand of time rolls a creed through the debris of error, its content grows larger and denser until it comes to rest as an immovable mass of solid doctrine. If you declare that you believe in Jesus, it is only a matter of time before someone may challenge you to clarify which Jesus . The one in the Bible, of course. Yes, but what do you believe about that Jesus? People in the Bible suggested he might be Elijah or some other prophet, but Peter rightly declared

How can you tell if you are truly filled with the Spirit? How can you tell if you are being led by the Spirit? The Bible tells us that there are three great hallmarks of the Spirit-filled, Spirit-led believer.     •      First, the person who is filled with the Holy Spirit is going to be a person of generous, joyful, and overflowing praise and thanksgiving to God. The Spirit-filled, Spirit-led person is going to radiate exuberance for the things of God. The apostle Paul told the church in Ephesus that those who were filled with the Spirit would find themselves “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 5:19–20). The Spirit-filled person cannot help but be overflowing with praise and joy.     •      Second, the person who is filled with the Holy Spirit is going to be willing to submit to one another i

if we were to start reading the New Testament from the beginning, we would not be able to get very far before we encountered something called baptism. As early as Matthew 3:1, we run into a man by the name of John, who is otherwise known as “the baptizer,” and, a few verses later, we see why. This John, we are told, devotes his life to “baptizing” many different people (vv. 6, 7, 11), the Lord Jesus Himself being one of them (vv. 13–17). The baptisms that we encounter in these early chapters of Matthew’s gospel are described simply as occurring. Very little explanation is given as to how they were performed or why they were performed. We are left to conclude that the practice of “baptism,” whatever it is, must have been something that was familiar to Matthew’s Jewish audience in the first century. The same thing can be said for all the baptisms that we see in the New Testament. Thus, when Jesus commands His followers to go and make disciples in Matthew 28:18–20, He instructs them to

Matthew 28—A Risen Lord Jesus and His Commission A. The risen Jesus [28:1–15] 1. Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany find an angel at the tomb (1–3) a. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb: They came to finish the preparation of Jesus’ body, which was cut short by the Sabbath ( Luke 24:1 –3). So after the Sabbath on Sunday (the first day of the week), they came to the tomb—fully expecting to find the dead body of Jesus. b. There was a great earthquake: Matthew alone notes this earthquake. The earthquake did not cause the stone to be rolled away; if anything, the angelic rolling of the stone prompted the earthquake.   i. “The earth shook both at Christ’s passion and at his resurrection; then, to show that it could not bear his suffering; now, to show that it could not hinder his rising.” (Trapp)   ii. Some think this was not a normal earthquake, but refers to the disturbance of the guards at the tomb ( Matthew 28:4 ). “Seismov, a shaking or commotio

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

Very few, if any, have awoken one morning and decided all of a sudden, “Today is the day I’m going rogue. Enough with all that honesty stuff. From now on, I’m all about corruption.” It typically begins as an indiscernible leak of integrity, at least in terms of self-awareness. You fail to arrive at a meeting on time without there being any perceptible consequence. You ballpark the mileage on your expense report, maybe even fudge it a bit. No one will notice. You miss an ordinary work-a-day deadline. The world didn’t come to an end. So, what’s the big deal? It’s sin — that’s the big deal. They are little sins, to be sure, but regrettably yet monstrous in the presence of a sublimely holy God. What first appear as hair-like fibers on a subterranean root, in time become a complex root structure capable of supporting a veritable Redwood of sin towering above. What begins as a fudged expense account graduates into the taking of un-earned discounts, overstating sales numbers, and sc