Dr Paul Allen

Your darkness can one day bring someone light. A person who’s been through a divorce has the compassion and words needed to help somebody going through a divorce. A person who’s been through abuse, rape, or an addiction can truly understand how to help someone else in a similar situation. And because you made it, God will cause your wounds to glow in the dark of somebody else’s life. And when you begin to share your story with them, hope will get in their soul, and they will start to believe that they can make it.   Don’t waste what you’ve gone through or allow it to make you bitter. If God lets you walk through it, it’s because He’s still God, and He has a plan. On five different occasions, the Apostle Paul was beaten with 39 stripes. That’s 195 scars on his body. Paul said, “Three times I was beaten with rods. One time, I was stoned and left for dead. Three times, I suffered shipwrecks. I knew what it was to be afloat in the ocean a full day and a full night. I thought I would die, b

Over my years of pastoral ministry and teaching, I have begun to notice something about people who struggle with assurance of salvation: almost all of them grew up as covenant children.  They made a profession of faith at an early age. They had never gone the way of the Prodigal and come back through a “dramatic conversion.” Outwardly conscientious and faithful, they’d been regarded as the “good boys” and “good girls” in their families and friend circles. Inwardly, though, it seemed to their own eyes a different story—a story of a mind still mired in sin, shameful and unholy feelings, and a will that never seemed to close the gap between what they knew they should do and what they actually did. I enjoy these pastoral conversations because that is my story. A covenant child who made a profession of faith at age six, I never went the way of the Prodigal. But I did ask Jesus into my heart at least a hundred times because “What if . . . ?”  Each time I prayed the sinner’s prayer, I hoped t

We live in an increasingly pluralistic society. Ironically, it tends to celebrate diverse religious views while criticizing attempts at religious conversion. Critics accuse evangelism of objectifying the people it seeks to convert. What should Christians make of this claim? To objectify people with our actions simply means to treat them as objects or tools rather than as persons. Often, it’s to use others as a means to an end rather than treating each and every human being as an end in and of themselves. If Christians fail to honour, respect, and love the person we’re witnessing, it’s possible we could be guilty of this charge. Chandler Moore However, we should also realize there’s nothing inherent to evangelism that objectifies people. Rather, evangelism respects the intelligence and agency of others while simultaneously considering them as immensely valuable individuals. Dignify Others Evangelism can and should be a holistic way of engaging others in an effort to convince them of wha

I suspect most of us have heard the 1981 song by the band Journey, “Don’t Stop Believin’.” It came into a second life around 2007, and for the last fifteen years, it has reached a level of popularity it didn’t first have. The song has a memorable tune that makes the main line, “Don’t stop believin’” (which doesn’t come till the last minute), seem so powerful. Yet if you analyze the words — as a pastor who likes classic rock might be prone to do — you find out how disappointing and thin the lyrics are. For one, “Don’t stop believing” in what? What’s the object of belief? The story behind the song is that one band member “went to the band with the iconic line ‘Don’t stop believin’; hold on to that feeling’ with the vague idea that Steve Perry [the voice] would want to sing it. Perry loved it,” reports one site, “and the band went on to improvise and jam until they had dialled in a workable version of the song.” A side note about the line “Just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit

Do you know God? Do you have the assurance that you have eternal life? Knowing that we know God is paramount because salvation ultimately can be boiled down to this one thing: knowing God. In John 17, Jesus, before going to the cross, was praying to the Father for His disciples – both those present at that time and those who would believe in future generations through the preaching of the apostolic word of the gospel. In verse 3, Jesus defines eternal life for us, praying,  “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” “Eternal life” is a phrase used forty-one times in the New Testament. And in John 17, we see what it means: to know God the Father and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Eternal life is not merely to live forever and never die. It includes that, of course, by definition. But eternal life is not simply an eternal existence of isolation or independence. It is eternal life in a relationship with God. It is a life that i

What is good work? and, What role do good works play in the Christian life? The Apostle Paul often explains that good works do not—in any sense whatsoever—play into a person’s right standing before God (Rom. 4:1–8; Eph. 2:8–9; Phil. 3:7–9; Titus 3:4–7). Isaiah unequivocally said, “All our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Isa. 64:6).  However, Scripture also explains that believers have been “created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Eph. 2:10), that we are to be “zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14; 3:1), and that Jesus commends the righteous for what they do for His sake (Matt. 25:31–36). So, how do we reconcile the fact that we are not accepted on the basis of our good works and yet that God accepts our good works though they are imperfect and tainted by sin? It is impossible that we who were all born “dead in sins and trespasses” can fulfil the legal conditions of the covenant by rendering to God perfect, personal, and perpetual obedience to His law. Nothing less than pe

When we read the prophets, we are often in pearl-hunting mode. The vast bulk of the prophets feels like a confusing, murky mess, but every now and then we’ll stumble across an encouraging verse such as “in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Isa. 30:15). Or perhaps we’ll come across a spectacular prophecy about Christ: “I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land” (Jer. 23:5). But what if the whole of the prophets were profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness? What if every verse of the prophets was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope? Wait, those questions sound vaguely familiar . . . (see Rom. 15:4; 2 Tim. 3:16). To unlock the whole of the prophets, we must grasp the pattern of judgment unto restoration. This simple three-word phrase captures t

It is far too easy to judge others over their sins when our own sins are obvious, so here’s why we shouldn’t “sin shame” others when they sin. Condemning Others Jesus said, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you” (Matt 7:1-2). The word Jesus used for “judge” has the connotation of condemning someone; similar to being the prosecuting attorney, jury, and judge all rolled into one. It’s so easy to judge others and have others judge us, but we can be wrong, and so can they.  We may not have all the facts, or we’ve got the wrong facts, so it’s best to give people the benefit of the doubt (1 Cor 13:7). The Apostle Paul didn’t care about hurting the church’s feelings because they were being judgmental. He chastised them, telling them that they “have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice t

Soon after becoming a Christian, I started wondering if I really was a Christian. The first doubt struck unexpectedly, like lightning from a cloudless sky. Am I real? I seemed to love Jesus. I seemed to trust him. I seemed to bear the marks of a changed life. But, the thought crept in, so too did Judas. Though the long night of wrestling slowly passed, I emerged from it like Jacob, limping into the daylight. Assurance has been, perhaps, the main question, the chief struggle of my Christian life over the years, sending me searching for what Paul and the author of Hebrews call “full assurance” (Colossians 2:2; Hebrews 10:22). The topic of assurance is complex, to put it mildly. Genuine Christians doubt their salvation for many different reasons, and God nourishes assurance through several different means. So the needed word for one doubter often differs from the needed word for another. Nevertheless, for those who find themselves floundering, as I did, perhaps unsure what’s even happenin

Darrell Carman was a member of my church who died of cancer six months ago. His wife, Ann, had died six months earlier with COVID (I wrote about her in another article, “Real Churches Commune with Dead Saints.”) As I thought about Darrell during the days after he died, and of what he must’ve been experiencing in heaven, I began thinking about what it means to “beat cancer.” We’ve all seen T-shirts and bumper stickers that say, “I beat cancer.” And of course, by beat, they mean survived. That’s how you “beat” it. To live is victory; to die is loss. (To be clear, I rejoice for anyone who survives cancer.) But by that definition, Darrell didn’t beat cancer—cancer beat him. At one level that’s obviously true, but it’s not the whole truth. Because as followers of Jesus, we walk by faith, not by sight. That doesn’t mean we close our eyes to the painful realities in front of us, but it does mean we open our eyes to the bigger picture God paints for us in his Word. That’s what it means to walk