Dr Paul Allen

Those born in the baby boomer generation are entering the longest phase of elderhood in history, full of potential but also fraught with challenges My friend Jeremy’s father has always taken pride in doing things himself. When Jeremy (whose name I have changed for his privacy) was a kid, he watched his dad, an architect, painstakingly renovate their entire family home – ripping up floorboards and laying tile. Today, Jeremy’s dad still insists on climbing up a ladder to clean out the gutters; he wants to fell deadwood with a pruning saw and move heavy furniture around the basement. But now 80 and living with Parkinson’s disease, his drive comes with higher stakes, every strenuous task increasing his risk of preventable harm. “My dad doesn’t know anything else,” Jeremy says. “He’s always been the person who fixes the hole in the roof.” Now he does it in spite of family members desperately trying to convince him to let them do it instead or pass those responsibilities to hired help. Being...

The kind of man you hate reveals what kind of man you are. “But I hate him,” Ahab declared of Micaiah, God’s prophet. Jehoshaphat, the righteous king of Judah, sat with Ahab, the wicked king of Israel, to deliberate one question: Should they go to war together against Syria? Peace had lasted three years with the pagan nation, but Ahab desired the strategic city of Ramoth-Gilead for Israel. He questioned aloud to Jehoshaphat, “Do you know that Ramoth-Gilead belongs to us, and we keep quiet and do not take it out of the hand of the king of Syria?” (1 Kings 22:3). Jehoshaphat consents to fight with Ahab but desires to hear first from the God of Israel. Ahab calls his four hundred prophets, who, with one voice, give their hearty Amen! “Go up,” they say, “for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king” (1 Kings 22:6). The kind of men from whom you solicit counsel tells us what kind of man you are. These men were no messengers of Yahweh, and King Jehoshaphat knew so. Diplomatically, he ...

The concept of “biblical headship,” or the idea that a man should have ultimate authority over his wife and/or women in the church, is primarily based on interpretations of four key New Testament passages (Icons of Christ, William G. Witt, 121). The one I will deal with in this post is 1 Corinthians 11. Verse 3 of this chapter reads as follows: “But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and the head of Christ is God.” At first blush, this passage might clearly seem supportive of the notion of “headship”; however, this understanding depends more on how we as English speakers typically interpret the word “head” rather than an understanding of the Greek word that Paul uses for head here, kephalē, and his intended meaning.  In fact, many modern Biblical scholars argue that “head” in this instance does not connote “authority over” but rather the concept of “source” (128-9). In fact, “head” carries similar nuances of mea...

As the ancient Israeli soldier gazes across the field of battle, he sees a sea of chariots and horses and soldiers far outnumbering his own. His hands tremble. His mouth dries. His breathing shortens. The gentle burn washes over him: fear. He struggles in vain to combat the thought, Will today be my last? Since a child he has read, “When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 20:1). Now, in war, God didn’t feel as near as the soldier imagined as a child. Visions of glory are giving way to heat and stench and hoards growing fiercer under a blinding sun. He blinks back lightheadedness. The enemy’s taunts grow louder as the cobra smiles at the mouse. Secret doubts begin to unman him. Even if the battle is ours, he reconsiders, the promise doesn’t ensure that I will live to share its victory. A distant f...

This article is by Kevin Deyoung and identifies the arguments against women having a teaching ministry. I find this whole argument swings on the concept of 'Authority.' The article is below. What do you think? I believe the authority issue is answered if there is a male district or national leader. It’s not surprising, given the volatile nature of sex in our world, that the divinely designed complementarity of men and women is a disputed topic. On the one hand, we want to be humble before the Lord and before each other, acknowledging that we can make interpretive mistakes. On the other hand, we don’t want to undermine practical biblical authority by declaring that all we have are “interpretations.” The existence of rival interpretations does not preclude that one of them is right or at least more correct than another. “Come now, let us reason together” is necessary advice for God’s people today as much as it ever has been (Isa. 1:18). With that in mind, let me address a number ...

In the twentieth century, the German biblical scholar Rudolf Bultmann gave a massive critique of the Scriptures, arguing that the Bible is filled with mythological references that must be removed if it is to have any significant application to our day. Giants myth! Miracles myth! Bultmann’s major concern was with the New Testament narratives, particularly those that included records of miracles, which he deemed impossible. Other scholars, however, have claimed that there are mythological elements in the Old Testament as well. Exhibit A for this argument is usually a narrative that some belief parallels the ancient Greek and Roman myths about gods and goddesses occasionally mating with human beings. In Genesis 6, we read this account: "When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. . . . The Nephilim were on the earth in those da...

It’s no secret, nor is it unclear. The Bible teaches things about women that clash with our fallen contemporary culture. Women may not function in the role of a pastor/elder (1 Tim. 2:12). Wives are to submit to their husbands as the church does to Christ (Eph. 5:22-24). Seasoned women are to shepherd younger women to, among other things, be “workers at home…[and] subject to their own husbands” (Titus 2:5). Consequently, culture often reviles God’s word on the grounds that the Bible holds women as inferior to men. And the irony is, that contemporary western culture values women lower than just about any time and people in history. Yet, that same culture accuses the Bible of a low, insulting view of women. But, nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is, God’s inerrant word of the 66 books of the Bible regards women higher than any other ideology, religion, philosophy, or system in history. Nothing teaches a higher view of women than biblical Christianity. Here are ten reas...