Dr Paul Allen

After a Christian charity worker who walked away from homosexuality following his conversion to Christ offered his powerful testimony on a radio show, law enforcement threatened him with possible jail time and a stiff fine for allegedly breaching his country’s law banning LGBT “conversion practices.” The Maltese government’s action against Matthew Grech, 33, is believed to be the first of its kind and is being viewed as a test case by free speech groups and Christian organizations that aim to protect the rights of former gays and lesbians to tell their stories and live freely without harassment from LGBT groups. Some of the latter assert that Christian teaching on marriage and debate surrounding LGBT lifestyles must be treated as criminal offences. Grech’s message is simple: A decade ago, he experienced a conversion to Christ, realized that sexual acts outside of male/female marriage are a “sin,” and freely chose to give up the homosexual life he had been living. If convicted, he faces

The Lord had assured Paul that he must go to Rome. He had also promised to give him the lives of all the 275 others who were on board. He did as He had promised. After arriving safely on land they found out the island was called Malta (Phoenician or Canaanite for “refuge”). It was south of Sicily and its people were descended from Phoenician colonists who settled there about 1000 B.C., and who probably spoke a dialect closely related to Hebrew. Rome had conquered the island in 218 B.C. The islanders received them graciously. Throughout this passage Luke uses the Greek term barbaroi to refer to the “islanders.” Barbaroi is translated variously, including “natives” (NASB), “rough islanders” (NEB), and “barbarous people” (KJV). But Luke does not mean that they were degraded or uncivilized. To the Greeks any foreigner who could not speak Greek was a barbarian. Later they gave the Romans a certain level of inclusion by redefining “barbarian” as one who could not speak Greek or Latin. I