Dr Paul Allen

I’ve recently had conversations with younger Christian friends who have been reeling from experiences and observations of confounding evil. As a man more than double the age of the friends I have in mind, I can vouch that comprehending what appears to be senseless evil doesn’t get easier the longer you live. Perhaps that sounds discouraging, especially since I remember, as a younger Christian, hoping I’d have greater wisdom in my golden years. After all, isn’t sagacity part of “the splendour of . . . grey hair” (Proverbs 20:29)? I hope this is true of me. But as I grow older, I’m discovering that the more significant part of wisdom isn’t accumulating a more excellent knowledge of good and evil so much as learning how to deal more faithfully with my deficit of such knowledge. So, if I have any wisdom worth imparting to Christians struggling with incomprehensible evil, it lies in cultivating the spiritual discipline of handing back the fruit. Problem of Evil Theologians and philosophers ...

Romans 8:3—God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. By sinful flesh he means fallen human nature. So what is the meaning of likeness? Some say Paul is undermining the reality of Christ’s true humanity, perhaps suggesting that his flesh is only a facsimile of ours, but not the real thing. However, v. 8b (“in the flesh”) indicates otherwise. Others argue the word likeness is Paul’s way of saying that Jesus never committed an act of sin. But Paul is talking about character, not conduct. The best solution is that Paul used likeness to avoid saying that Christ assumed fallen human nature. He took flesh like ours, because really flesh, but only like ours, not identical with it, because unfallen. He uses the word likeness because he feels compelled to use the phrase sinful flesh instead of merely flesh. Had he omitted sinful he also would have omitted likeness. The question remains, “Why does he include the word sinful?” Murray comments: “He is concerned to show that when th...

In the OT, homosexuality is unequivocally condemned. Homosexual sex is prohibited in the law (Lv 18:22; 20:13) and called an abomination. However, of all the illicit sexual relations listed in Leviticus 18 , homosexuality is not singled out as being any different or any more worthy of condemnation than any other sexual sin. God’s attitude toward homosexuality is portrayed in the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah (Gn 19). Ezekiel includes among the sins of Sodom “immoral acts,” using the same term as in Leviticus 18 to describe homosexual acts (Ezk 16:43; cp. Jd 7). The law condemns all homosexual sex and does not distinguish between perverted and wholesome homosexual relationships. The central NT passage that addresses homosexuality is Romans 1:24–27 (cp. 1 Co 6:9; 1 Tm 6:10). It is set in the context of the condemnation of those who reject God as revealed in creation, or through natural law . It is part of Paul’s broader argument for the universality of sin and judgment, setting the ...