Dr Paul Allen

After the Lord Jesus Christ predicted the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, his disciples asked, “Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” (Matt. 24:3). They probably had no idea how much discussion Christ’s answers to those questions would generate. Today, the doctrine of eschatology (the study of last things) is controversial. Discussions about the end times are muddied by specific false ideas about the end of this age and the second coming of Christ. In this article, I discuss and refute five myths about the end times—namely, (1) that they are a failed promise, (2) that they were entirely fulfilled in the first century, (3) that in the end times, God will save everyone or (4) that he will annihilate the wicked, and (5) that after the end times, people will live as heavenly spirits. Myth #1: The End Times Are a Failed Promise According to some teachers of theological liberalism, Jesus believed that the kingdom ...

History’s Most Important Book When it comes to books, none is more famous than the Bible. It’s the most sold, translated, and arguably the most influential book in history. As a result, it occupies a vaulted place in our shared cultural conscience. When American presidents want to raise their rhetoric or filmmakers want to add gravitas, they reach for a biblical reference. Even today, as the Bible’s cultural authority waxes in the West, everyone knows something about the Bible. As with anything of historical importance, the Bible has accumulated its share of mythical distortions in the popular mind. Many of these swirl around its origins. Maybe this is because the Bible’s origins span such a long time or our culture is primed to distrust authority. Whatever the cause, these are five myths inside and outside the church about the history of history’s most important book. Myth #1: The books were chosen by a church council. This first myth may originate as far back as the 17th century, but...

In 1934, writer Clare Harner, grieving her brother Olin’s death after a sudden illness, published a poem with these lines: “Do not stand by my grave and weep. / I am not there, I do not sleep. / I am a thousand winds that blow / I am the diamond glints in snow. . . . / Do not stand by my grave, and cry—I am not there, I did not die.” Before you criticize Clare for her wishy-washy theology, stop to consider whether you’ve heard or uttered a “more biblical” version of her comforting words yourself. “Don’t cry. She’s in a better place.” Or, in the negative, “God is going to bring something beautiful from his death. Prolonged grief shows a lack of trust in God.” When it comes to death, we all long to tell a different story than the one we truly see through tears, in dust and ashes before us. When we’re neck-deep in trials, we grasp for these platitudes hoping they’ll offer us a lifeline. Whether we’re offering flimsy hope to a friend or to ourselves, the myths we tell ourselves about grief...

Myth #1: The church is a Trinitarian community. Hold on! Of course, the church is a Trinitarian community! As Fred Sanders rightly affirms, “The gospel is Trinitarian, and the Trinity is the gospel. Christian salvation comes from the Trinity, happens through the Trinity, and brings us home to the Trinity.”1As gospel communities that experience and proclaim salvation, our churches are Trinitarian communities—by definition! Sadly, in our contemporary context, what is true by definition is far too often absent in reality. Certainly, we still baptize people in the name of the triune God (Matt. 28:19), and we still send forth our church members with a concluding trinitarian benediction (2 Cor. 13:14). But other key elements of our church’s worship service are at best Trinity-light. Take preaching, for example. Decades ago, J. I. Packer warned of a disconcerting trend: “The average . . . clergyman never preaches on the Trinity save, perhaps, on Trinity Sunday.”2Is this trend not accelerating...

Myth #1: It won’t happen to me. As for me, I said in my prosperity,“I shall never be moved.” By your favour, O Lord, you made my mountain stand strong; you hid your face; I was dismayed. (Psalm 30:6–7) Overconfidence may not lead directly to a fall or to depression, but being overconfident hardly prepares one for either. David appears to have expected his spiritual “prosperity” to continue unbroken—the sort of “I’ve finally arrived” attitude that many of us may have experienced briefly before learning that, no, life usually doesn’t continue in an unbroken vista of “personal peace and affluence.”1 Even the achieving of those dubious goals does not (thankfully) fully protect us from the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”2 It is better to expect what we are promised in Scripture in the form of unwanted and (hopefully) undeserved suffering. Otherwise, we risk being surprised by that very thing about which we have been repeatedly warned (1 Peter 4:12). Depression can be quite as fie...

The powers of darkness have captured the attention of millions of people, Christian or not, for millennia. If contemporary popular culture is any indication, this fascination has hardly abated.  Unfortunately, a considerable amount of misunderstanding and outright misinformation has accrued to the discussion, even within the church.  Much of what Christians think they know about Satan, demons, and other evil powers are guided far more by Christian tradition and hearsay than the exegesis of Scripture in its own context. This is a problem of both method and translation . Most people interested in what the Bible has to say about the dark powers do not have access to the primary sources that frame the worldview of the biblical writers. English translations often obscure nuances crucial to correctly parsing what the biblical text says (and doesn’t say) about the powers of darkness. To be fair, however, even scholars are not immune to careless statements about the powers of darkness...

Myth #1: Jesus wasn’t concerned with hell. Christ spoke a great deal more about judgment and hell than many might care to admit. Not only that, but he speaks of hell in a number of different ways to illustrate its endless, horrifying torment. For example, he uses a “parable” in  Luke 16  to describe the place called “Hades” ( Luke 16:23 ), which has a “great chasm” ( Luke 16:26 ) fixed by God to prevent crossing from hell to heaven and vice versa. He speaks of the “hell of fire” ( Matt. 5:22 ); the danger of the “whole body” being “thrown into hell” ( Matt. 5:29 ); it is the “unquenchable fire” ( Mark 9:43 ); the impenitent are “thrown” there ( Mark 9:45 ), “where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” ( Mark 9:48 ). Jesus, the Son of man, with his angels, will send all “law-breakers” and “throw them into the fiery furnace” where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” ( Matt. 13:41-42 ). Jesus called it a place of “outer darkness” ( Matt. 25:30 )....

Myth #1: There are no good arguments for atheism. We should admit up front that there are some decent reasons a person might have for being an atheist, and we should be careful not to casually dismiss these reasons. To be sure, not every atheist actually has these reasons in mind, but such reasons exist and we should take them seriously. In fact, failing to take them seriously can do considerable harm. Of course, taking them too seriously is also a problem. Also, keep in mind that there can be good arguments for false conclusions. When considering reasons for any position, think of the situation in terms of a balance scale, the old kind with two pans. Each side of the scale represents one side of the argument. And the weights in the pans are the reasons supporting that pan’s respective side of the argument. Both sides can contain relatively large weights, which would represent that side’s stronger arguments. But even so, one side can ultimately weigh more. To put it differently, a...