Dr Paul Allen

According to a major  study  by the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, “bisexual women die, on average, nearly 40 percent younger than heterosexual women, while lesbian women die 20 percent sooner.” These are tragic numbers that should concern all of us, regardless of our attitudes towards lesbianism and bisexuality. If you care about people, this is sad to hear. As reported in the  Daily Mail , “The researchers used data from the Nurses’ Health Study II, a cohort of over 100,000 female nurses born between 1945 and 1964 and surveyed since 1989.” So, while the study focuses on a particular segment of society, it relies on a tremendous amount of data and covers almost thirty years of death records. What was the cause of these alarmingly shortened life expectancies? According to lead author Dr. Sarah McKetta, a research fellow at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, “The difference in mortality is said to be due to the ‘toxic social forces’  LGBTQ  people...

Dr Paul Twiss Christ is the Savior, and He is the Teacher. Jesus instructs me. He teaches me how to think, how to speak, and how to walk every day. When I reflect on His Word, my affection for Him grows. In part, this love is the reflex of my soul, as I see that Jesus’ Word is good. He is the Shepherd, who leads me in paths of righteousness. Christ’s instructions awaken my affections because through them I see His supremacy. I see how He reigns over all creation, and how all things hold together in Him (Col. 1:17).  As an image bearer, I was made to behold this glory. My soul longs to look upon Christ and the unity of the cosmos according to His kingship. His teaching is a roadmap towards such beauty. Thus, as God’s Word instructs me, I love Jesus the Teacher. UNDERSTANDING THE SKILL OF LEARNING Some of my favourite memories include my greatest teachers. I am indebted to these people. Interestingly, I do not always find the same affection when I think about other figures in my chil...

Who was Haggai? Haggai 1:1–2:23 Little is known of Haggai other than he was a prophet raised up by God shortly after the remnant returned from Babylon under Zerubbabel, the account of which is recorded in Ezra. Haggai was obviously a man in touch with God and was therefore entrusted with divine communication for the people of his day. His ministry came with power, and arrested his generation, seeing them stirred-up to make adjustments. At the time of the return, great optimism for better days existed among the people of God. The quest for prosperity had resulted in a number of industrial initiatives being taken, which occupied the time and energy of the people but brought dismal results. In all of these material disappointments the people failed to take time to consider the reasons for this lack of success.  At this point Haggai is introduced on the scene and speaks with the ultimate authority; ‘thus saith the Lord of Hosts; Consider your ways’. The reason for all their labours bei...

Smartphones and social media will cure the epidemic of widespread loneliness. Or so we thought. We would all be connected, all together, all the time, and none of us would ever feel alone. But the harsh truth is we could always be lonely, even lonely in a crowd, and now lonely in a digital crowd. We send texts and pictures and videos and tweets and Facebook updates and we refresh and wait . . . often to a blank screen. No responses, or very few. But at some point, when we hit refresh and stare at a screen with no new updates, it can feel like no one is on the other side of the line. We feel loneliness in the middle of online connectedness. In reality, “it’s a lonely business, wandering the labyrinths of our friends’ and pseudo-friends’ projected identities, trying to figure out what part of ourselves we ought to project, who will listen, and what they will hear” (Marche, “ Is Facebook Making Us Lonely? ”). But it’s a chicken-and-egg question. Does Facebook attract the lonely, or doe...