Dr Paul Allen

Some teach that the Bible requires us to believe the earth is flat. Geocentrism is the idea that the earth is the center of our solar system, not the sun. “Biblical geocentrism” is based on the hyper-literal interpretation of verses like Psalm 104:5 (the sun and other planets must revolve around the earth since the earth cannot be moved). Now, I know what you’re thinking. What about space travel? Satellites sent into orbit that enables global communication? Airline flight patterns that use the curvature of the earth to cheat passengers out of extra frequent flyer miles (okay, maybe that isn’t the carrier’s motivation)? The truth is these are conspiracies contrived by people who hate the Bible. That’s what science does … it makes up lies to cover up the fact that the Bible has the truth about how God created the earth. Sanctified brainwashing By what process of hermeneutical alchemy is all this possible? It’s actually pretty simple: hyper-literalism . The sanctified flat-eart...

Anyone who teaches the Word of God wants people excited about exploring Scripture. Ultimately, you want to turn listeners into competent students so that they can teach others. Along the way, you have to deal with a lot of mistaken methods and conclusions. But so what?  You've probably run across a lot of bad Bible interpretation over the years. The problem isn’t just the Internet. Unfortunately, a lot of poor thinking about Scripture has been published for popular consumption in the Church—and consumed it is. But is it really harmful?  Truly Destructive Bible Interpretation But some Bible interpretation is truly damaging—and on a wide scale. For that sort of harm, you needed professionals—people who are supposed to know better because they have degrees or are in positions of spiritual leadership. Perhaps the most egregious example is racism. Since the Age of Exploration (sixteenth century) on through the eras of European empire and colonization, the ...

Christians have often been troubled by the question, How do we rightly read the Old Testament? Thankfully, the book of Hebrews provides us with important directions on how to interpret the Old Testament rightly, now that Christ has fulfilled all things. However, the history of theology and the history of the church demonstrate that there are disastrously wrong ways to read the Old Testament. The first major error made in approaching the Old Testament comes down to reading it as if it is a book that does not belong to the church.  This way of reading the Bible assumes that the Old Testament belongs to the Jews, whereas the New Testament belongs to the church. Sometimes the way we describe our congregations can unintentionally lend to this type of understanding. For example, Protestants are very concerned about ordering their church life so that they are legitimately a “New Testament church.”  By this, we mean that we are seeking to follow the ecclesiology modeled ...

The coming of Jesus was decisive. For Christians, Jesus splits history into two parts: B.C. and A.D. Besides being the turning point of history, Jesus is the turning point of the Bible. His coming is the decisive event of both history and Scripture. The Old Testament is God’s revelation before Jesus and the New Testament is God’s revelation after Jesus. But while the Old Testament was written before Jesus, he is not absent from the Old Testament. Jesus himself taught otherwise. After his crucifixion, two people were walking to a town near Jerusalem called Emmaus (Lk 24:13–35). Suddenly they were joined by a third person whom they didn’t recognize. They were startled that this man seemed to have no knowledge of the momentous events of the previous days when Jesus was nailed to the cross. In addition, these two followers of Christ told the stranger that some women had gone to the tomb and had found it empty! Others followed and confirmed their report. The two travelers to Emmaus wer...