Dr Paul Allen

What is a temple? A religious building, yes. But specifically, a temple is a place where humans meet with God. Even more specifically than that, it is where impure humanity meets with pure divinity. It is where the divine and the human, otherwise alienated from one another, meet; where the sacred and the profane intersect once more. All of humanity knows itself to somehow be outside. A temple is where, briefly, we can be brought back in. In the Old Testament, the divine and the human mingled in a physical building, where, with strictly limited access, we could fellowship with the holy God. In the New Testament, the divine and the human mingled in a physical body, where, with unlimited access, we could fellowship with the holy God. And while the Old Testament temple kept out the unclean, weak, and defiled, the New Testament temple embraced the unclean, weak, and defiled. Eden after the fall, Noah’s ark, the tabernacle, Solomon’s temple, the second temple—they all had walls. Access denie...

  The complete relocation of believers is clearly expressed in Romans 8:9, where Paul describes them as being in the Spirit while also referring to the fact that the Spirit of God lives in them. These apparently contradictory phrases are to be appreciated for what they are—descriptions that emphasise the integrated involvement of the Spirit with the believer (1 Cor. 6:17).  The intimate association of the Spirit with the believer is heightened in that the Spirit is described as being of God (this, in 8:9, is the first occasion in Romans where Paul refers thus to the Spirit). It is none other than God who resides within the believer.  Not only that, but he lives in them (8:9), indicating a tangible experience of God, not merely an intellectual acknowledgement of divine truths. Intimacy of relationship, not merely a rational response, is the ideal expected by Paul when he refers to the Spirit dwelling in the believer. The sense of privilege but also of challenge for believe...

Dan Delzell Pastor Andy Stanley raised more than a few eyebrows 11 years ago when he shared a story about a couple in his church who got a divorce after the husband began a sexual relationship with another man. Dr. Albert Mohler Jr. described the incident this way: “Stanley clearly and repeatedly stressed the sin of adultery, but then left the reality of the homosexual relationship between the two men unaddressed as sin. To the contrary, he seemed to normalize their relationship.”  And then five years ago, lightning struck again when Andy argued that the Christian faith must be “unhitched” from the Old Testament. Sadly, those who downplay and dismiss the Word of God are terribly misguided and spiritually adrift. Andy continued his assault on Scripture last year when he said, “I know 1 Corinthians 6, and I know Leviticus, and I know Romans 1, so interesting to talk about all that stuff. But just, oh my goodness, a gay man or woman who wants to worship their Heavenly Father, who did ...

I (Sam) ran into a long-standing church member at the store. We had one short conversation, but it was emblematic of a much broader concern. She’d been going through a bit of a crisis, and we hadn’t seen her at church for a few weeks. So when I ran into her, I told her how much we’d missed her and how lovely it would be to see her in church again. She told me she couldn’t come until she was doing better. She didn’t want people to see her while feeling life’s mess: “I’m waiting until the storm passes and I’ve got things back together enough to be able to walk back into the church building.” Those words were heartbreaking. Church should be the place we sprint to when things are at their worst, not the place we avoid until we’ve got our Instagram-worthy Christianity back. I saw right away that this church member’s perspective was unhealthy. But I sensed something else was wrong, too. There was a mismatch between the beauty of the truth my church proclaimed and the culture we’d cultivated....

1 Thessalonians 2:10-12 – You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers. For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. For those who know the Lord Jesus and believe in His coming Kingdom, living on this fallen cursed planet can be very dark, discouraging, and disorienting. This longing for Home causes Christians to ask numerous questions. In the New Testament, there are parts of the Bible where the author answers questions that were sent to him by local church leaders on behalf of people in the church.  One example is 1 Corinthians. Throughout the letter, Paul frequently quotes directly from the letter he received from the Corinthians (e.g. 6:12, 6:13, 8:5, 10:23). He also notifies the reader of when he is transitioning from one topic to another with the simple phrase “now” t...

One of Scripture’s most difficult concepts is that God can bring good out of evil. We remember that Joseph’s brothers betrayed him and, upon being reunited with him in Egypt, feared his revenge. But Joseph said to them, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20). That was God’s intention. He used the brothers’ treacherous activity in order to save lives, sanctify Joseph, and bring His plan to pass. One of the most comforting passages in the New Testament is Paul’s statement:   “for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).  We must be careful here. Paul does not say that everything that happens, considered in and of itself, is good. Nor is our theme song “Que Sera, Sera,” “Whatever will be, will be.”  We do have the astonishing promise, however, that everything will work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.   This means t...

Don Carson, president of TGC, provides a simple explanation of how people were saved in the Old Testament. God has always required that his people exercise faith, even when that faith lacked the clear connections to Jesus that we can see today. Old Testament believers were saved by grace through faith, by the grace of God whom they trusted according to His own promises. In that broad sense, there really is no difference between the way the Old Testament saints were saved and the way New Testament saints are saved. But nevertheless, the obedience of faith that was required under the Mosaic covenant, for example, demanded that people worship at the Tabernacle then later at the Temple. God commanded them to participate in the sacrifices of the Day of Atonement, in Passover, and so on. And very few of these people saw clearly how some of these sacrifices pointed forward to the ultimate sacrifice. Nevertheless, they took God at his Word. Just as in the original Passover, if the Israelites ...

It’s impossible to read the New Testament and not see Jesus and the early church facing demonic possession. Summary statements of Jesus’s ministry, such as Matthew 4:24 and Acts 10:38, show us that Jesus not only encountered demon-possessed people but also healed them. Despite varied symptoms of possession and methods of deliverance (e.g., Matt 15:22–28; Mark 1:21–28; 5:1–20; Luke 13:10–17), the demons were no match for the Son of God. The early church also encountered demon-possessed people (e.g., Acts 5:16). Philip’s ministry included exorcism (Acts 8:5–8), as did Paul’s (Acts 16:16–18). As Bill Cook has observed, “Those who [encountered] demonic resistance—whether it was persecution, demon possession, or magic—showed no fear of confronting it in Jesus’s name.” Is Possession Still Possible? The question before us in this article, though, is whether demon possession happens today. Three caveats are in order. First, we must stand on the truth that “the human heart is the biggest proble...

 In certain parts of India, many girls have been given the name Nakushi. It’s a name some parents gave newborn girls when they were hoping for a boy instead. Local superstitions say that if parents name their daughter Nakushi, they will reverse the girl-curse, and they’ll improve their odds for a boy the next time. Tragically, Nakushi means “unwanted.” These precious girls are labeled from birth with parental disappointment. Each time they hear this name, they’re reminded of how dad and mom wished they had been someone else. No wonder that in 2011, when the Indian government permitted them a name change, more than 200 young women seized the opportunity, changed their name to one of their own choosing, and became Nakushi no more. From birth, we all need a name change. And, in the gospel, that’s what Christ gives us. We Need a New Name God once labeled us as “enemies” (Rom 5:10), “strangers” (Eph. 2:12), “rebels” (Ezek. 20:38), “haters” (Rom. 1:30), “impure” (Eph. 5:5), and “ignorant...

In 1 Corinthians 3:9, Paul calls the church “God’s building.” He is not referring to a physical building of bricks and mortar. Rather, he is talking about the church as the assembly and community of the saints. Peter describes his readers as those who “like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5). What does this building language tell us about the nature of the church and our responsibility to it? Paul also describes the church as “God’s field” (1 Cor. 3:9). The agricultural metaphor points to the church as the place of growth for God’s people, while Paul at the same time chastises the Corinthians for their lack of growth (vv. 1–2). The building language in verses 9–15 warns the Corinthians to “take care” how they build (v. 10). Buildings are built, as they say, from the bottom up. They begin with a solid foundation. That is how Paul begins to talk about God’s building. As a child, I loved running around and playing in my dad’s houses in different stages of...

Some time ago my wife and I visited a church we’d never been to before and heard a message about Old Testament promises, specifically from one paragraph in Joshua 1. Take particular note of the promises because the preacher did: This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go. (v. 8) A stirring passage. And the preacher, who was a gifted speaker, skillfully weaved its themes into a unified sermon. We profited from it. We love to hear God’s word preached with care and feeling. But there was one implicit rhetorical move underlying the entire message that I felt uncomfortable with, and it was explicitly stated at the end when the preacher sa...

    REPORT BY MARK MORRIS In early July, Afghan pastors and church leaders made a difficult decision. They decided to formally register their faith with the Afghan government. What an absurdity to register as Christians in an Islamic republic that prohibits a person from converting to Christianity! Against the advice of many, these Afghan church leaders felt compelled, for the sake of future generations, to legally declare their true faith in Christ. “What about our children and our grandchildren?” they said. “Someone should make this sacrifice so the next generations can openly call themselves followers of Jesus.” They registered with the government, and we all prayed from outside, asking God to protect them from being rounded up and imprisoned the next morning. They were interviewed but not arrested. Dramatic Church Retreat This past weekend, we met in an Afghan/English church retreat. On the first night of the retreat, we learned that a pastor in Afghanistan received a lett...

We are living in times when cynicism is not only acceptable but in some places, it is expected. It is mainstream, even admired. By cynicism, I mean the general disinclination to trust others, especially purported authorities, or the inclination to believe the worst in others and of the world altogether. And it increasingly is the air we breathe. This mood of cynicism didn’t appear out of nowhere. It is the result of secularism, the pretence that there is no God, or at least that he is off-limits in public discourse and polite company. Secularism offers no firm hope, and soon produces cynicism, and cynicism begins to pick at the basic pillars and long-standing givens of human life and civilization, one after another. End to Our Cynicism So secularism breeds cynicism. And cynicism does not breed productive action. Cynicism breeds laziness. It did on the island of Crete in Titus’s day, and it does in our day. And this morning we turn for the first time to Paul’s letter to Titus, which he ...