Dr Paul Allen

Keith A. Mathison Why in the world should I care about theology?  All I need is the Bible.  I can follow Jesus without having to learn all kinds of obscure words. Have you ever heard another Christian say something like these statements? Have you ever said something like that yourself? Ever thought of such things? If so, you’re not alone.  The vast majority of professing Christians have little to no interest in theology. In the minds of many Christians, there is no necessary connection between theology and their everyday Christian life. Theology, they believe, is irrelevant. The disconnect between theology and the church and between theology and the Christian has had disastrous results. One need only look at recent polls examining the level of theological knowledge among professing Christians to know that something has gone awry.  When large numbers of professing Christians start telling their friends and family, “You just have to read The Shack! I learned so much ab...

Word studies done well can yield great benefits for the earnest student of God’s word. But as fundamental as word studies are to understand the Bible—or at least, as a first step to understanding the Bible—they carry many pitfalls. Scripture was originally given in languages different from ours, so we face translation challenges. Language is always changing, so we face comprehension challenges. Language is more than mere words, so understanding a single word doesn’t resolve interpretive challenges. Recognizing the ways we can go astray can help us avoid interpretative disasters. Here’s how not to do a word study. 1. Don’t conduct English-only word studies. To conduct a biblical word study in English only is a fatal flaw. Every translation employs different English words for the same Greek and Hebrew words, and different Greek and Hebrew words are sometimes translated with the same English word. The term “love” provides a good example. In Hebrew, there are two words translated as “love”...

In his second missionary journey, Paul made a sudden detour to Berea after the fledgling Christian church in Thessalonica was violently threatened. While Paul’s plan may have been disrupted, his pattern of ministry was not: in Berea, he continued his established method of reasoning from the Scriptures in the synagogues with Jews and other God-fearers.  There is not a lot told to us about the people of Berea except that they were “nobler than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11). Luke clearly admired their enthusiasm for the Word, and Christians for centuries after have admired the same. To this day, it is not odd to find their name adopted by congregations. In my own city, we have a Berean Baptist Church.  Colleges have taken on these Berean Jews as their namesake, and settlers in Kentucky hundreds of years ago named their small village Berea—now it’s the fastest-growing ci...

A reader asked, “What is the value of systematic theology? Isn’t there a risk of misinterpretation because of trying to process all of God’s Word through a system rather than letting it speak for itself?” I think it’s impossible to teach theology without teaching worldview and impossible to teach worldview without teaching theology, and in particular, systematic theology. A doctrine is a teaching that summarizes biblical truth. Hence the “view” in worldview amounts to a doctrinal lens, a belief system through which you see the world. It applies to everything from money to sex to abortion. There is a theology of Heaven and work and nearly everything else. It’s “what God has to say about this subject in His Word.” It requires that we examine the whole counsel of God, the larger picture, lest we leave out something vital that is not recorded in Titus or Hebrews or Joshua or Proverbs (or whatever book may partially address a given issue). Ours shouldn’t be just a view based on a single pas...

1. Heartfelt Gratitude and Joy One of the most important experiences of my life was when we met indigenous people in Woorabinda in Queensland. We did some outreaches, children's ministry and spoke to the locals. Then we read books on Bible translation work happening in the Northern Territory. It took 30 years to translate the Bible with two separate teams performing the task. They had a group of non-Christian indigenous women who helped the white translators. The most amazing part of the story was not only there a great celebration upon the completion of the Bible, but these women were saved during the process of translation and knowing the Bible intimately they became pastors. Imagine devoting decades of your life lives so that other people would have the Bible in their own language?  People at the ceremony were weeping because they were able to read a Bible in their own language for the first time. There are still thousands of people groups who do not have translations of t...