Dr Paul Allen

What is Spiritual Warfare? 2 Thessalonians 1:4 –  Therefore, we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and the afflictions you are enduring. I heard a person who was in the military once share a harrowing war story with me. He and his men were deployed in Iraq and on patrol when they walked into an ambush. Enemies had set a trap for them that they unfortunately could not escape. They were surrounded on all sides, taking heavy enemy fire, low on supplies and ammunition, and had to settle in for an extended firefight. Thankfully, their communications still worked, and they could call for support. Exhausted, beat up, stressed out, and on alert, the soldiers needed to keep fighting to hold their position until reinforcements showed up, put down the enemy, and got them safely home. The Bible talks a lot about spiritual warfare, which has a lot in common with actual combat. For the Church, we are surrounded by the Enemy ...

By MT Cooper I learned early on in my Christian life that the shortest verse in the Bible was “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). It wasn’t until studying Greek that I discovered that John 11:35 is three words, although one of them is a single letter definite article. The actual shortest verse in the Greek NT is 1 Thessalonians 5:17. ln English it is often translated with three words, “pray without ceasing” (ESV) although in Greek it is only two. You can get it to two words in English easily enough, “pray unceasingly,” but then you have competition for the shortest verse. A Digression The real surprise, however, occurred when learning that the Bible was not divided into chapters and verses until the 1500s! And for good reason. With the emergence of the printing press making the Bible more accessible, chapter and verse divisions made studying and recalling the location of thoughts and stories easier. Yet, for most of the Bible’s history, people had no idea about the shortest verse because there ...

The start of a new year is a great time to assess where you are spiritually and to examine yourself to see where you need to grow in your walk with the Lord. You can look back on the past year and see how your life of prayer went, where it was strong and where it was weak; and you can seek the Lord to help you grow in your strengths and shore up your weaknesses. At the conclusion of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we see the necessity of prayer in chapter six, verse 18 (“With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints”). In spite of how comprehensive all of Paul’s instruction has been to this point, there is still one significant exhortation left to give to believers: prayer. Paul wanted the Ephesians to build a powerful life of prayer – one that was sustained in and out of crises that they faced on earth. He wanted prayer to be part of everything they did. He wanted them to be pe...

Have you ever tried to summarize for those in your care what the Scriptures teach about the behavior of real disciples, about the everyday lives of those who follow him? It’s an important subject, most of us would agree. But nowadays it’s hard to discuss without people interpreting such summaries as volleys in the culture wars. Summaries of Cross-Shaped Discipleship The Bible is full of moral admonition for disciples—abiding in Christ, putting his kingdom above all, living by its ethics even among our enemies, and so on. It seems to me, though, that when we look to the New Testament for summaries of genuine discipleship, three kinds stand out: (1) statements about the way of the cross (and the cost of discipleship), (2) summaries of the Law and the Prophets, and (3) new commandments about practically fleshing out love for God and neighbor. I want to underscore what Jesus said of cross-shaped discipleship—the first of these three kinds of summative pronouncements: If anyone comes to me ...

  Dear Brothers and Sisters, I am currently in Odessa, where all is still relatively well. Air raid alarms rarely sound. A couple of minutes ago, I heard shots from the sea. A rocket hit a house not far from the house where my mother is, but thankfully it did not explode. You may know what is happening in other cities from the news. My wife and children have gone to Poland, so I’m not worried. What of other Ukrainian Christians? What is the state of the church in Ukraine currently? There are some pastors and churches that are under fire in Kyiv every day and need the prayers of God’s people. There is the pastor of the Holy Trinity Presbyterian Church in Kyiv, Pastor Ivan Bespalov, with his family. Another Reformed pastor in Kyiv, Pastor Sergey Nakul, reported that his young son recently asked, “Dad, if Putin kills us, will we go to heaven?” “Yes, son, of course we will go to heaven.” Due to the chaos, I think that the state of the church here can be described as follows: a state of...

If you or your church prays for Ukraine, here are some suggestions. Thank God for who he is (holy, sovereign, good, righteous, just). While this is a good way to start any prayer, it is particularly important when faced with national trials, such as war and persecution. For example, in Acts 4:24 as the disciples were facing the church’s first persecution, they began by praying: “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, “‘ Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain?  The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed’- for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.  A...

Christians pray for their enemies—but should they also pray against them? Consider two verses. Jesus says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44). But David says—of an enemy—“Let there be none who extend to him loyal love, nor any who pities his orphans. Let his descendants be cut off. Let their name be blotted out in the next generation” (Ps 109:12–13). Are Jesus and David contradicting one another?1  Should we pray “imprecations” (prayers for God to bring retributive justice to wicked enemies) like these?2  In this excerpt, adapted from May/June 2021 Bible Study Magazine, Adam J. Howell considers these sticky questions—and how we can rightly apply the imprecations from the Psalter to pray for enemies in our own lives. The first thing we must remember is that the imprecatory prayers of the Psalms are inspired Scripture and therefore profitable in the Christian life. We cannot disregard these portions of God’s Word or pass them off as irrelevant t...

Fight and Choke Temptation Years ago, a man was hunting deer in the Tehama Wildlife Area of Northern California. As he climbed through a rocky gorge, he lifted his head to look over a ledge and saw something move next to his face. Before he knew it, a rattlesnake struck, just missing him. The strike was so close, however, that the snake’s fangs became snagged in the neck of his sweater. As the snake coiled around the man’s neck, he grabbed it just behind its head. A mixture of hissing and rattling filled his ear as he felt warm venom run down his neck. He tried to dislodge the fangs from his sweater but fell backward and slid down the embankment. Using his rifle, he untangled the fangs, freeing the snake to strike repeatedly at his face. The man later explained, “I had to choke him to death. It was the only way out.”1 When you face temptation, you enter a battle even more dangerous than having a rattler striking at your face. The Scriptures liken Satan to a closely crouching snake or l...

If seeing and embracing the sovereignty of God causes us to pray less, we have not yet understood his sovereignty or prayer. Providence does not make prayer optional or incidental, but vital and indispensable. Not because God couldn’t do it another way — God does all that he pleases however he pleases — but because the sovereign God has chosen, precisely and wisely, to hang many of his plans on the prayers of his people. Did anyone love and herald the absolute sovereignty of God like the apostle Paul? And yet he says in 2 Corinthians 1:11,  “You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.” He also calls believers to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), and to pray “at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication” (Ephesians 6:18). The pages of Scripture, and of history, are filled with the power and necessity of prayer, because the all-powerful God has chosen to hear and ans...

Losing your temper is a lot like losing your car keys—you never choose to and it always seems to happen at the worst moments. For some “losing your temper” means yelling, swearing, pounding a fist on the table. For others, lost temper is barely perceptible: a tightening of the jaw, a cold silence, but the angry feelings are still swarming, just hidden away inside. Whatever our style, we all lose our temper sometimes. By “lose our temper,” I simply mean that you and I sometimes hand the reins of our behaviour over to the feelings of anger in our soul. As your body begins to pump adrenaline, expand blood vessels, and tense muscles for a fight, your desire to feel vindicated (though all too often later reflection reveals you weren’t nearly so far up the moral high ground as you’d thought) takes over and hands you your script. Fundamentally, losing your temper means you’ve placed anger in the saddle and you are now galloping along at its command. Why Does This Happen? Despite the...

What is prayer?  The Westminster Larger Catechism 178 asks that very question, stating in response, “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, in the name of Christ, by the help of his Spirit; with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.” Three defining truths regarding prayer emerge. Prayer is the communication of our desires to God our Father. Prayer is not simply thinking about God or having concerns. Rather, prayer is expressing need from the heart to God. Those who do not sense their needs do not truly pray. They are like the Pharisee in the Lord’s parable who, standing in the temple stating how superior he was to others, “was praying this to himself,” not to God ( Luke 18:11 ). In contrast, the Scriptures picture true prayer as an offering rising up and seeking heaven’s attention, like incense offered before the Lord in the temple ( Rev. 8:5 ). Prayer is casting anxieties on God (1 Peter 5:7 ), crying to God in trouble ( Ps. 34:17 ), an...

As a Christian, do you want to learn how to pray more faithfully? Do you need to learn more about prayer? One of the greatest gifts Christ gives us is instruction in prayer. Interestingly, it was the disciples who asked Jesus to teach them. Luke 11:1 tells us that the disciples came to Jesus and made a clear request: “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” It is also incredibly interesting that when Jesus honored the disciples’ request, he first taught them how not to pray. Sometimes, before we can really understand how to do something important, we have to understand how not to do it. Do Not Pray Like the Hypocrites The first thing Jesus tells us as we prepare to pray is “do not be like the hypocrites.” Jesus condemns all forms of hypocrisy but here he is speaking of a very specific, public hypocrisy. As we have seen, this display of hypocrisy is one that seeks personal attention for piety. Jesus explains the interior motive of these types of hypocrites: “they love ...

“Nevertheless we made our prayer unto our God , and set a watch against them day and night, because of them.” ( Nehemiah 4:9 ) https://hopecollege.com Prayer is a powerful weapon, but the wall-builders in Jerusalem also were careful to set a watch against their enemies “with their swords, their spears, and their bows” ( Nehemiah 4:13 ). They were ready to fight if necessary, but at the same time they were confident that “our God shall fight for us” ( Nehemiah 4:20 ). This is a sound biblical principle. God expects us to make appropriate use of whatever physical means are available for a needed ministry rather than to rely simply on prayer and divine miracle. The Lord rebuked those who came asking Him to perform a miracle merely to test Him or to see something curious. “Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe” ( John 4:48 ). Neither does He condone prayer in lieu of work, for “faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone” ( James 2:17 ). The same holds for p...

Communion with God , of course, is in prayer. There is sweet fellowship there with our God through His Holy Spirit . Enjoyment of God there is in praying , sweet, rich and strong. The graces of the Spirit in the inner soul are nurtured by prayer, kept alive and promoted in their growth by this spiritual exercise. But not one nor all of these benefits of prayer have in them the essential end of prayer. The divinely appointed channel through which all good and all grace flows to our souls and bodies is prayer. “Prayer is appointed to convey - The blessings God designs to give.” Prayer is divinely ordained as the means by which all temporal and spiritual good are gained to us. Prayer is not an end in itself. It is not something done to be rested in, something we have done, about which we are to congratulate ourselves. It is a means to an end. It is something we do which brings us something in return, without which the praying is valueless. Prayer always aims at securing an answer. W...

To have a healthy relationship with God , we need to have healthy communication with him. The Bible is a part of this communication with God; it is God speaking to us.  The God-given means for our communicating with him is prayer.  So Bible reading and prayer should go together: God speaks to us through his written Word, and we respond through prayer. In fact, we are commanded in Scripture to pray (Philippians 4:6), and more than that, to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17 NASB). This is because God knows how vital prayer is to our spiritual health. Because prayer is so important, God has provided models for prayer in the Bible. The most obvious and best known is the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9 –13 and Luke 11:1–4. The latter reference is Jesus’ direct response to his disciples’ request that he teach them to pray. So I would certainly recommend this prayer model to you, but since it is covered so well in so many other sources, I would like to draw your at...