Dr Paul Allen

Dr Ted Tripp Most think Jesus taught about peace, love, gentleness, and heaven. They probably would not cite these words: “I came to cast fire on the earth and would that it was already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on, in one house, there will be five divided, three against two and two against three.” (Luke 12:49–52) Consider three words in Christ’s statement. DIVISION Christ’s audacious claims produced division. He claimed to be sinless (John 8:46–47), to be the only way to God (John 14:6), to forgive sins (Luke 5:20–21), to give eternal life (John 6:40), to share the glory with the Father (John 17:5), to be the heavenly King (18:36–37), and to be the One who would judge the world (Matt. 25:31–32). These are polarizing claims. According to C.S. Lewis, they force the conclusion, “Either He was and is the Son of God...

David Mathis Have you ever wondered why we Christians so often sing about Jesus’s blood? It’s a very strange thing to emphasize, is it not? Not simply the cross and his death, but his blood. Just last Sunday, our church sang twice about the blood of Jesus. First in an old hymn: “And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood?” Then in a newer song: “By his blood and in his name, in his freedom I am free.” Growing up, I often sang, “There is pow’r, pow’r, wonder-workin’ pow’r in the blood of the Lamb.” That was my dad’s favourite. Or one that many of us know: “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” We Bible-believing Christians do not simply recognize the reality of Jesus’s blood and refer on occasion to Jesus’s blood, but we sing about it. We glory in it. That is, in a spirit of worship, in declaring Jesus’s worth to each other, and in praising him for his greatness, we often sing about the otherwise morbid topic of blood. Have you ever stopped ...

Trained instincts—that’s how fighter pilots can react immediately to rapidly changing situations as they operate $27 million war machines. When a threat aircraft is closing in, there’s no time for pilots to reason through what to do. They have to rely on instinct—but not just natural instinct. They need instincts shaped deep within them through years of the regiment. The countless little decisions they make in the cockpit are automatic, but that doesn’t mean they’re involuntary. The pilot voluntarily trained for them, and in the cockpit, he reaps the instinctive benefits of that training. This is a good illustration of how unintentional sin works . Can we be guilty of sinful responses that seem to erupt in us automatically? Can we really consider sin voluntary if it is not consciously chosen? Scripture’s view of human experience is complex enough to answer yes. Scripture speaks of involuntary sins as including three characteristics: they are  (1) from ignorance of God’s will and th...

Among today’s evangelicals, it has become virtually commonplace for us to talk as if all sins render us equally guilty before God. Perhaps we have bristled at a previous generation’s tendency to identify one or two sins as particularly hell-deserving. Perhaps we are looking for a way to winsomely engage a society allergic to the idea of sin. My guess is that many of us just want to do justice to Scripture’s universal condemnation of human sinfulness. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Should we really insist that some have sinned worse and fallen farther? But then we listen to Jesus and find, as usual, that like so many tables in the temple courts, he turns over our assumptions. Although Jesus warns us not to make hasty, simplistic conclusions about who the “worse sinners” are (Luke 13:1–5), he also warns us that some sinners, if they do not repent, will face “the greater condemnation” (Luke 20:47). He teaches that some will receive a comparat...

There is no greater message to be heard than that which we call the gospel. But as important as that is, it is often given to massive distortions or over simplifications. People think they're preaching the gospel to you when they tell you, 'you can have a purpose to your life', or that 'you can have meaning to your life', or that 'you can have a personal relationship with Jesus.' All of those things are true, and they're all important, but they don't get to the heart of the gospel. The gospel is called the 'good news' because it addresses the most serious problem that you and I have as human beings, and that problem is simply this: God is holy and He is just, and I'm not. And at the end of my life, I'm going to stand before a just and holy God, and I'll be judged. And I'll be judged either on the basis of my own righteousness–or lack of it –or the righteousness of another. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus lived a...