Dr Paul Allen

Your academic life was all yours, from elementary to middle and high school to higher education. You read. You studied. You took quizzes, tests, and exams on your own. You did projects and wrote papers. You received your scores, marks, and grades. But occasionally, you were required to participate in a group project. Yes, you remember those. The group project is two or three or more of your classmates joining you to assemble a project for your teacher or professor.  Each member did a piece of the whole to submit it. You had to agree on everything from the topic to the content to how you would present it. And then, you all received the same letter grade, regardless of who did what or how much. Of all the things you were supposed to learn by doing the group project, you probably knew that you never wanted to do a group project again. They just rarely work well. Either you had to do most of the work yourself, or a “weak link” dragged down your grade. Who came up with this form of acad...

In Luke 14:26, Jesus spoke some words that indeed captured the immediate attention of his hearers just as they do ours: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Shocking words. Words that may strike us as harsh on the surface. But what did he mean? SHOCKING WORDS. WORDS THAT MAY STRIKE US AS HARSH ON THE SURFACE. BUT WHAT DID HE MEAN? Jesus contended in the previous text that many who claim to desire to eat the kingdom feast are deceiving themselves. Now, as large crowds follow him, he turns to them and challenges them about what it means to be his disciple (cf. Luke 7:9; Luke 5:11; Luke 9:59–60; Luke 16:13; Luke 18:29–30). Those in the crowds cannot be Jesus’ disciples unless they hate family members: fathers, mothers, wives (cf. Luke 14:20), children, brothers, and sisters (cf. Deut. 33:9). The word “hate” is hyperbolic and stunning, arresting our attention...

Jen Wilkin When we hear Jesus’s command in Matthew 28 to go and make disciples, we tend to think of it in terms of evangelism. We picture Jesus’s disciples fanning out across the known world, armed with gospel tracts. We picture joyful conversions followed by joyful baptisms. And then we picture those evangelists moving on to the next town, carrying the gospel from Jerusalem to Judea to the ends of the earth. But if our understanding of the Great Commission is primarily a call to evangelism, we’ve forgotten a key piece: theology. Jesus’s final command isn’t a call to make converts but a call to make disciples. And as the Great Commission states, that call will require us to teach converts to “observe all that [Jesus has] commanded” (Matt. 28:20). When we think about discipleship, we must see the importance of passing along the good deposit of doctrine that was passed along to us. What Are We Doing with Our Doctrine? Conversion happens in an instant. Discipleship in the way of living ou...

Mark 8:34 recounts Jesus’s most pointed teaching on the nature of discipleship. This instruction applies to all (i.e., not simply the twelve) who want to follow him and includes three elements:1denying oneself, taking up one’s cross, and following him. Mark narrates instances of each of the three elements, allowing us to see what they look like in practice.  The first is perhaps the most radical. One must deny not “things that the self wants, but the self itself.”2In 2 Timothy 2:13, Paul speaks about the impossibility of God denying himself, which would entail acting “contrary to his own nature, to cease to be God.”3 Calling his followers to do what is impossible for God, Jesus requires a “radical abandonment of one’s own identity and self-determination.” They are to join the “march to the place of execution.”4 The second element, to take up one’s cross, is Mark’s first reference to “cross” (stauros) and the only reference outside the passion narrative (Mark 15:21, 30, 32). It fore...

Have you ever tried to summarize for those in your care what the Scriptures teach about the behavior of real disciples, about the everyday lives of those who follow him? It’s an important subject, most of us would agree. But nowadays it’s hard to discuss without people interpreting such summaries as volleys in the culture wars. Summaries of Cross-Shaped Discipleship The Bible is full of moral admonition for disciples—abiding in Christ, putting his kingdom above all, living by its ethics even among our enemies, and so on. It seems to me, though, that when we look to the New Testament for summaries of genuine discipleship, three kinds stand out: (1) statements about the way of the cross (and the cost of discipleship), (2) summaries of the Law and the Prophets, and (3) new commandments about practically fleshing out love for God and neighbor. I want to underscore what Jesus said of cross-shaped discipleship—the first of these three kinds of summative pronouncements: If anyone comes to me ...

Works of Faith Paul underlines repeatedly the crucial and powerful relationship between faith and the good works of love. Paul would happily say with James, “I will show you my faith by my works” (James 2:18). For the works of love are the fruit of faith, and thus the aim of Paul’s ministry. “The aim of our charge is love that issues from . . . sincere faith” (ἐκ . . . πίστεως ἀνυποκρίτου, ek . . . pisteōs anupokritou, 1 Tim. 1:5). Paul calls the God-pleasing works of believers “works of faith,” meaning that their faith is the kind of reality that moves them to do good works. For example, in his prayers for the Thessalonians, he remembers their “work of faith” (ἔργου τῆς πίστεως, ergou tēs pisteōs, 1 Thess. 1:3). And he prays “that our God may . . . fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith [ἔργον πίστεως, ergon pisteōs] by his power” (2 Thess. 1:11). A Christian’s good works are “works of faith,” meaning they are the fruit of the transforming effects of faith. Saved by Fa...

FLABBY CHRISTIANS > NOT PHYSICAL BUT SPIRITUAL! I agree that often Christians in the West are immature. I agree our walk doesn’t always match our talk. But I also think the average Christian is about 3000 bible verses overweight. The way many leaders approach maturity is to assume that knowledge produces maturity. Since when? It’s wonderful that people understand what they believe, but knowledge in and of itself is not a hallmark of Christian maturity. As Paul says, knowledge puffs up. Love, by contrast, builds up. And some of the most biblically literate people in Jesus day got by-passed as disciples. The goal is not to know, but to do something with what you know.  I wrote more on why our definition of Christian maturity needs to change here. 7 TRUTHS ABOUT AUTHENTIC DISCIPLESHIP Here are seven things I believe are true about biblical discipleship church leaders today should reclaim: 1.  Jesus Commanded Us To Make Disciples, Not Be Disciples. The way many Christians talk,...

I’ve found that many Christians, post-conversion, tend toward legalism or antinomianism in their pursuit of sanctification. I’ve seen this trend both in churches I’ve pastored and in Christian friends. One woman grew up in a strict Reformed Baptist home. She always tended toward legalism and fought it biblically for years. Another friend was converted in his mid-thirties after spending many years searching for joy in bars. He has battled an antinomian impulse for many years. Others pendulum-swung after conversion: from legalism to license, or vice versa. Not all Christians struggle deeply in one of these areas, but the tendency is widespread. That’s why we so desperately need Galatians. Give My Life Back to Jesus? My discovery of the spiritual riches in Galatians came at the end of a long road. For more than a decade, I tried to follow Jesus by “rededicating” my life to him over and over and over again, maybe two hundred times.  I was converted at age 10 and was fortu...

The biblical master narrative serves as a framework for the cognitive principles that allow the formation of an authentically Christian worldview. Many Christians rush to develop what they will call a "Christian worldview" by arranging isolated Christian truths, doctrines, and convictions in order to create formulas for Christian thinking. No doubt, this is a better approach than is found among so many believers who have very little concern for Christian thinking at all; but it is not enough. A robust and rich model of Christian thinking—the quality of thinking that culminates in a God-centered worldview—requires that we see all truth as interconnected. Ultimately, the systematic wholeness of truth can be traced to the fact that God is himself the author of all truth. Christianity is not a set of doctrines in the sense that a mechanic operates with a set of tools. Instead, Christianity is a comprehensive worldview and way of life that grows out of Christian reflection on t...

Radical obedience to Jesus relativizes natural relationships. By  natural relationships , I mean relationships established by ordinary, non-miraculous processes, such as the relationships between parents and children, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, and so on. By  radical obedience , I mean that the supreme value of Jesus has taken hold of us at the root ( Latin   radix ), and we seek to live in a way that shows that supreme value, with the teachings of Jesus and the apostles as our guide. By  relativizes  natural relationships, I mean that the claims of natural relations are never absolute in comparison to the claims of Christ , and that total devotion to Jesus may at times prevent even biblically sanctioned forms of respect and affection. This means that following Jesus often introduces ambiguity and sorrow and pain into family relationships . If you are looking for a religion that will make all your relationships clearer and smoother a...