Dr Paul Allen

For many are called, but few are chosen. (Matthew 22:14) I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, “He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.” (John 13:18) For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. (Matt.24:24) And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Matt. 24:31) And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? (Luke 18:7) For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. (John 5:21) All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose ...

You, Will, Have Trouble It is a guarantee that we will have trouble in this world as Jesus himself did. But, with his power and presence in our lives, we are called to endure and thus shine the light of Christ in a dark world. Be encouraged by these passages and commentary from the ESV Study Bible. Romans 8:35–39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. The quotation from Psalm 44:22 shows that the difficulties listed in Romans 8:35 do strike Christians...

As time passes, I become more and more convinced that faith comes from hearing and hearing from the Word of God. No amount of evidence can convince someone about the truth of the Gospel. It is the Word of God, itself, that has the power to save and transform souls. Because of this conviction, I love walking through Scripture with people whenever they permit me the time. And there are three passages in particular that I am usually drawn to, depending on the type of questions I receive throughout the conversation. So, here are my top three passages to study with unbelievers. Matthew 5:21-30, 48 This one is especially helpful for people who don’t think their sin is that bad. This is a go-to passage for several reasons. It comes from the Savior’s mouth, Himself. It is designed to show much how deep man’s depravity truly is. And it ultimately places God as the standard that we should reach to, and, by doing so, shatters false religion in pieces. If you sense that you have more time, w...

Welcome to the fascinating world of applying Scripture. Here we encounter the complexities and challenges of moving from words on a page to actually living out the text within our lives. Our mandate is to figure out which statements from the Bible in their “on the page” wording you and I should continue to follow in our contemporary setting. In order to do this, we must determine whether we should apply a particular biblical statement in the exact form articulated on the page or whether we should apply only some expression of its underlying principle(s).  Learn more by enrolling at www.hopecollege.com In this respect, the objective is not to uncover the meaning of the words of the text in their dictionary sense. Commentaries spend much of their time doing this. Rather, our task is one of applying the ancient text in our modern context. So, assuming that a plausible or reasonable understanding of the text’s original meaning can be attained, we will put our efforts into grap...

To have a healthy relationship with God , we need to have healthy communication with him. The Bible is a part of this communication with God; it is God speaking to us.  The God-given means for our communicating with him is prayer.  So Bible reading and prayer should go together: God speaks to us through his written Word, and we respond through prayer. In fact, we are commanded in Scripture to pray (Philippians 4:6), and more than that, to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17 NASB). This is because God knows how vital prayer is to our spiritual health. Because prayer is so important, God has provided models for prayer in the Bible. The most obvious and best known is the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9 –13 and Luke 11:1–4. The latter reference is Jesus’ direct response to his disciples’ request that he teach them to pray. So I would certainly recommend this prayer model to you, but since it is covered so well in so many other sources, I would like to draw your at...