Dr Paul Allen

I n the parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus, the rich man, suffering in hell, asks Father Abraham to send Lazarus to his father’s house to warn his five brothers to save them from hell. His attempt, though not the core teaching of the parable, reveals a general truth, i.e., when a grievous thing strikes us, our natural instinct is to warn others, especially our loved ones, so that they would not suffer the same fate. For one thing, the culture of the rich man — different from ours — tends to encourage such an effort. In that culture, a person does not exist as an independent entity, but as part of a larger group. Within the framework of a shared identity, social obligation always preempts the individual’s self-interests. In the case of the rich man, he is obligated to alert his brothers of an impending terrifying doom. He does so without obsessing with the possibility of being belittled as to why he has landed in the awful spot in the first place. For him, social obligation offsets how...

The story of Joseph in Genesis is, in part, the story of God’s sovereign control of history. God alone knows the end from the beginning (Isa. 46:10), so He alone knows where this arc of history is heading.  Even those with no faith, who talk about history having a direction, often admit this truth: we are not stuck in the pointless meanderings of a cold dead universe or the endless circles of some Eastern mystical religion. No, history has a goal, a direction, and a purpose. ROBED TO RULE As we first meet Joseph in Genesis 37, we see a young man seventeen with everything going for him. He’s the favoured child of the patriarch Jacob, son of the beloved Rachel.  Though Joseph is sometimes portrayed as an arrogant young upstart, pleased with himself and lording it over his brothers, I’m not convinced this is right. The evidence to prove this view of him usually boils down to his robe, report, and revelation. The famous robe (likely a robe of many colours, though the word is somew...

A blood feud raged in 1863-1891 between the Hatfields of West Virginia on one side of the Tug Fork River and the McCoys of Kentucky on the other side. The catalyst was a pig that Randolph McCoy accused Floyd Hatfield of stealing. After four decades of feuding, a dozen lives were lost, and the matter was finally curtailed by the governors of Kentucky and West Virginia, and the US Supreme Court itself. Over the course of the following century, the tension between the families became something of American folklore, the stuff of legends, though it took on a less sinister hue. Today both families make money off the tourist route that commemorates their feud. There are monuments raised in places where Hatfields or McCoys lost their lives, complete with commentary available on audio CD for a self-directed driving tour. But it wasn’t until 1979 that the two families faced off again. This time it was all in good-natured fun. The TV game show called Family Feud features two teams each week who c...