Dr Paul Allen

It is not uncommon to find Christians who are confused and discouraged by the times. When things are difficult, it is easy to ask why they are so hard. There may or may not be specific answers to this question, yet the Scriptures remind us that the people of God have in every season faced opposition—yet not without purpose. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in his commentary on Acts 6, said: The Church has had to fight for her life from the very beginning. We have seen how the apostles were arrested and thrown into prison, how they were threatened, how they were commanded to stop preaching. From the moment it was born, the church has faced a world that has done everything it could to exterminate Christianity. Although this perhaps tempts us to be more anxious than anchored, it reminds us that what we face is, in fact, not entirely unprecedented. It also causes us to look to the early church to see how they faced difficult circumstances and remained faithful. The life of Stephen, in particular, c...

  GOD SPEAKS IN THE DARKNESS The moonlight spilled over the room’s edges through the large windows on the south side. I could see his body lying still, yet attentive, as I slipped through the bedroom door. The light outlined his small form on the pillow, and a foot peeked out from under the sheet. He was waiting again, more patiently than most eleven-year-olds, because waiting is his life. Waiting to hear the creaking of the stiff door hinges, waiting for the sound of feet coming near, waiting to hear the bedrail creak indicating presence. My slippers shuffled noiselessly along the wooden floor; at his bed, I leaned forward and felt his warm breath on my cheek. So near, yet his eyes still wide and waiting—no recognition greeted me, just the same wondering and expectant expression. I have done this a thousand times, but still, he does not know my face. His eyes could not pick his mother out in a crowd. I broke the silence with a hoarse whisper: “Son, it’s Mom. I’m here.” His head je...

Do you believe empathy can be spiritually dangerous? I do, and I have tried to explain why and how. And as I have, I have received some criticism (some of it quite fierce). The criticism is not surprising. Most of us have categories for the way that certain passions (such as fear or anger) can become sinful; articles about “the sin of anger” or “the sin of fear” make sense to us. But in the modern world, empathy is viewed as an almost unalloyed good, and therefore the notion that it could be dangerous, and even sinful, may be shocking. Nevertheless, the interactions and criticisms have been both illuminating and instructive. For instance, one group of responses sounds like this: How can you call empathy a sin? Empathy is Christlike care for suffering people that seeks to deeply enter into their pain in order to help them. By criticizing empathy, you must be advocating for an aloof, uncaring, and unchristian response to suffering people. At a basic level, this criticism of my argument i...