Dr Paul Allen

It Is Well When peace like a river attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say, “It is well, it is well with my soul! It is well with my soul; It is well, it is well with my soul! —Horatio Spafford (1876) He Is Enough When Paul spoke of being hard-pressed on every side, he wasn’t speaking lightly. He wasn’t saying, Whew, things were a little tough for a while. He was describing pain that was so oppressive that he “despaired of life itself ” (2 Cor. 1:8). How in the same sentence can Paul be pressed in like that, yet not be crushed?  Nancy Severns knows the answer.  She has been bedridden for five years with pain from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a debilitating disorder that affects her entire body, inside and out—her ribs even slip out of place! When all feels torturous, Nancy slowly inhales and calmly acknowledges the pain. She then enters it much like the three Hebrews entering Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace. There in the middl...

John Donne, one of the greatest lyric poets in the English language, fell sick, possibly from a typhus epidemic.  In the course of his illness, which could have been fatal, and after his recovery, Donne wrote a series of meditations on the experience entitled Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. Besides being a dazzling masterpiece of English prose, the Devotions are a classic example of Christian meditation.  Their reflections on sickness, facing death, and trusting in God through afflictions are startlingly relevant for today’s coronavirus epidemic. The devotions follow the entire course of the illness, with a meditation on every stage:  the first faint symptoms; starting to feel really bad; going to bed; calling the physician; the physician is worried; they try various medicines; the patient keeps getting worse; the patient (Donne) realizes that he is probably going to die; he starts feeling better; he can get out of bed; he worries about a relapse, etc. In all, there ar...

The coronavirus epidemic has disrupted our lives, shut down the economy, and killed thousands of people. If God is sovereign and good, some are asking, why doesn’t He stop it? There are often, at the heart of such questions, misconceptions about both God and the world. The prevailing view of God today is that of “moralistic therapeutic deism.” God is loving and good, which means that He just wants us to be happy. He can help us with our problems and wants us to be loving and good too. But He is not particularly demanding or judgmental, and He basically leaves us alone. This view is rampant among teenagers, research has shown, but it can also be found among contemporary theologians who insist that God is so good that He would never condemn anyone to hell or punish His Son for other people’s sins.  But while this sentimental view of God seemingly puts Him in a very positive light, it makes Him a straw man for the arguments of atheists, who contend that such a being is ...

For five years, an ancient clay seal remained in a closet in Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology. After the seal was dug up at the foot of the southern part of Jerusalem’s old city wall, initial examination failed to establish the significance of the nearly 3,000-year-old object. But then a researcher carefully scrutinized the letters on the seal, resulting in a major discovery. The inscription, written in ancient Hebrew, reads: “Belonging to Hezekiah [son of] Ahaz king of Judah.” At the center of the seal is a two-winged sun surrounded by two images symbolizing life. The archaeologists who discovered the seal believe that King Hezekiah began using this seal as a symbol of God’s protection after the Lord healed him from a life-threatening illness (Isa. 38:1–8). Hezekiah had been pleading with the Lord to heal him. And God heard his prayer. He also gave Hezekiah a sign that He would indeed do what He had promised, saying, “I will cause the sun’s shadow to move ten steps backward” (...