Dr Paul Allen

The gift of the Holy Spirit or the Holy Spirit Gift, which was prophesied by the prophets, applied to “tongues” by the Apostles. God planned to give the saints the gift of their own spirit languages when He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world (see Eph. 1:4).  Apostle Peter applied Joel’s prophecy about how God would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh to the Day of Pentecost when the disciples received the gift of the Holy Spirit (see Joel 2:28; Acts 2:16).  Apostle Paul applied Isaiah’s prophecy of God speaking to His people with stammering lips and other tongues to the Holy Spirit’s gift of speaking in tongues (see Isa. 28:9–12; 1 Cor. 14:21). Jesus told His followers that at that time He was with them but when He sent the Holy Spirit to them He would be in them. This was a fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy that God would give to those who would be His people a new heart and a new spirit and then He would put His Spirit within them (see Ezek. 36:27...

“And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.” ( Ecclesiastes 3:13 ) Some people may have the feeling that having to work for a living is an imposition of a corrupt society. Since they were brought into this world through no choice of their own, therefore the world owes them a living, they think. Is working a punishment because of our sins? Well, God did “curse” the ground because of sin, but in an important sense it was for man’s own good. “Cursed is the ground,” He told Adam, “for thy sake” ( Genesis 3:17 ). It would require “the sweat of thy face” (v. 19) before man could eat his bread, and even then it would be “in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life” (v. 17). But the work itself would not be a punishment, for even before he sinned, God had given Adam the responsibility in his Edenic garden “to dress it and to keep it” ( Genesis 2:15 ). Furthermore, we shall have work to do in the new earth in the ag...