Dr Paul Allen

When it comes to the prosperity gospel, the Book of Job will both shake and shape you.  When I first read it, I found it troubling . It didn’t seem fair. Job was a righteous man. But over the years, this story has helped forge my understanding of God and my theology of suffering. It has taught me that God himself—not anything he gives me—is my greatest treasure. Years ago, a colleague mentioned what he had learned from Job. I was surprised to hear that his study had yielded a markedly different conclusion than mine. In his words,  “Job got everything back and more for his suffering. He was blessed with more children and more money than he ever had before. That’s what the story shows us—doing the right thing always brings blessing and prosperity.” While the first part was true, I disagreed with his conclusion. He subtly was echoing the message of the so-called “health, wealth and prosperity gospel”—that God’s goal for us in this life is perfect health, total happiness and finan...

English: Jesus and Mary Magdalene (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) There is an appropriate tension in the relationship between Christians and the world. We serve a Lord who came to bring life abundant (John 10:10), who has overcome the world (John 16:33), who is bringing all things under subjection (Ephesians 1:22), who will see every knee bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord, to the glory of the Father (Philippians 2:10). Jesus is the second Adam succeeding where the first Adam failed, not only in obeying God 's law perfectly, not only atoning for our failure to keep the law, but in fulfilling the dominion mandate. The church, which is the second Eve, or bride of the second Adam, is a help suitable to Jesus in fulfilling that calling. We are in union with Him, bone of His bone . We are to be about the business of pressing the crown rights of King Jesus . Trouble is, we, like the disciples before us, are often zealous more for our own success, our own power, our own glory...