Dr Paul Allen

G.K.Beale EXACTLY WHAT FIGHT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT? The expression “fight the good fight” is often used in Christian circles and Western culture. Indeed, while perusing Amazon.com I found at least thirty-one books with the title “The Good Fight” and at least ten books with the fuller title “Fighting the Good Fight,” some of which were overtly Christian but many of which were not.  The origin of the phrase is 1 Timothy 1:18 (and perhaps in 1 Tim. 6:12 and 2 Tim. 4:7). In 1 Timothy 1:18 and 6:12, Timothy is exhorted to “fight the good fight”; in 2 Timothy 4:7, Paul says that he “has fought the good fight.” I am writing a commentary on 1 Timothy (for the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary Series). When I came to 1 Timothy 1:18, I noticed that the phrase “fight the good fight” is composed of a verb (strateuō) and a noun (strateia) that is a cognate word with the verb. The use of the noun “fight” after the verb “to fight” in this phrase is a figure of speech whereby there “is a repetition o...

By Nicholas T. Batzig In his excellent little book The Emotions of Jesus, Robert Law offers a passing contemplation about how the Savior would have seen the world through the lens of sinless human experience. He writes:  “Though little is directly reported of it in the Gospels, this also belonged to the perfection of our Lord Jesus. No one has ever lived in such a marvellous world as he, to whom ‘the glory in the grass and splendour in the flower’ continually revealed the diviner miracle of a Heavenly Father's munificent love and care.” If anyone could have sung the words of the hymn “This Is My Father’s World” with a heart full of delight at the manifestation of the glory of God in the intricately created plants, trees, animals, fish, sunsets, oceans, seasons, minerals, gems, rocks, scents, food, and drink, it was the sinless Son of God incarnate. And yet, there was another world that the Savior viewed from the side of sinless humanity. These two worlds collided when the Son of Go...

As we enter the Advent season, it is a good time to be reminded that Jesus was a real person, who had a real family, and real ancestors. His ancestors were sovereignly appointed by God, who steered history all the way to the virgin birth. Here is a list of Jesus’ ancestors by name, along with the meaning of each name. While this may be a hard concept for us today (we often choose names that have no meaning), Hebrews were generally very aware of the significance of a name. Obviously, a person was given their name before they had their character revealed (although there are examples of people who had their name changed to reflect their current conduct–Israel, Naomi, etc.), but part of the Hebrew's trust in God’s sovereignty was a recognition that God is sovereign over birth, and over names. Thus the connection between a name and conduct was much more direct and atemporal than Americans can imagine. With that said, read through the meaning of the names of Jesus’ ancestors, and see how...

Let's explores the meaning of baptism and how those baptized form a beautiful picture of Jesus and a “present-tense” sign of the gospel—the good news that he has arrived in the world. The apostles read the Old Testament as a preview of Jesus, full of blurry snapshots of the coming Savior. Jesus is the last Adam (Rom 5:12–21). He’s the seed of Abraham, a resurrected Isaac (Heb 11:17–19), the living temple of God (John 1:14; 2:13–22), the son of David (Rom 1:1–4), a prophet like Moses who leads his people in a new exodus from the Egypt of sin and death (Luke 9:31; Acts 3:22; 7:37). Jesus is the key to all the puzzling riddles of the Old Testament. The second-century Greek bishop Irenaeus used a beautiful image to explain this: the Old Testament contains the fragments of a mosaic; when you put all the pieces together, the mosaic portrays the face of a handsome prince, Jesus, the Prince of Peace.1 The church fathers called the Old Testament fragments “types” (from the Greek, typoi) and...

The danger of erroneous interpretation of Scripture is not new in our day. The Apostle Paul instructed a young Timothy, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15). There is a right way and a wrong way to handle the Word of God. Unfortunately, our era continues to be littered with those who may find themselves ashamed because they have mishandled the Word of Truth. Take, for example, Mark 16:17–18: And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly poisons, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover. Although the authenticity of this passage is debated, some have taken these words and used them to justify the practice of literally handling deadly snakes in the midst of the congregation ...