Dr Paul Allen

Luke Simmons Wait a second. . . . Those giant, beautiful warriors are elves? I was so confused watching The Lord of the Rings for the first time. I hadn’t read the books (gasp!) and was finding out the magical creatures of Rivendell were unlike any elves I’d ever heard of. In my understanding, elves were tiny—they lived in trees baking cookies or at the North Pole assembling toys. They scurried around more like ants than archers. But J. R. R. Tolkien’s elves (brought to life by Peter Jackson) were elegant, striking, powerful, and—I later discovered—immortal. It was the same word (“elf”) but a different dictionary. And a different dictionary because it was a different story. The only other time I felt as confused by words with such divergent meanings was when I started living around Mormons. This confusion demands a better approach to reaching them with gospel grace. Surrounded by LDS Neighbors I live in Queen Creek, Arizona, a Phoenix-area suburb, surrounded by neighbours who belong to...

Words are weapons. They are either weapons used in the service of God and His kingdom—weapons that are brandished in love for God and our neighbour—or they are weapons used in the service of the kingdom of this fallen and sinful world—weapons wielded in the love of self and hatred of God and neighbour.  This is simply the reality of what words are.  This reality powerfully confronts us in our current context, and we struggle with how to wield our words. We live in the middle of a swirling vortex of political conflict, social unrest, clashing values systems, a culture war, and a global pandemic, and the power of words as weapons through social media has exponentially increased.  Through various forms of social media, words as weapons are used to mobilize, encourage, scare, advocate, anger, inform, judge, punish, reward, lament, and rejoice, all on a massive scale and with dizzying speed. How do we navigate through this daunting and sometimes overwhelming reality, and how ...

I have come to realize through years of obsessive-compulsive love of English that the distance between my English and that of the KJV is mostly due to something over which I and the KJV translators have no control: language change.  The reason I can write an entire book evaluating the English readability of the KJV and yet not say one negative word about the choices of the KJV translators is that I don’t blame them for failing to be prophets.  Language changes in far more interesting and complicated ways than I understood as an eighteen-year-old KJV reader. No one can fully predict the future of the English language, even those who—like the KJV translators—help shape that future. But the biggest problem with KJV vocabulary is not actually the dead, obsolete words. When you run across emerod, you know you don’t know what it means, so you know when to pull out your dictionary. The biggest problem in understanding the KJV comes from “false friends,” words that are still in common...

If you’ve seen the classic 1987 movie The Princess Bride, you can’t fail to remember the word inconceivable. The brainy Sicilian, Vizzini, overuses the word as he, Fezzik, and Inigo Montoya, stealing away with Princess Buttercup, find themselves pursued by a mysterious Man in Black.  Time and again, the Man in Black overcomes obstacles to close the distance, and each time Vizzini exclaims to himself, “Inconceivable!” Eventually, Inigo Montoya objects in his heavy accent: “You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” I worry that the same could be said of the present generation of Christians who use three altogether different words—to glorify God. “To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever,” answers the child, the class, or the congregation, reciting the answer to the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. “ This ministry exists to glorify God,” writes a group of founders crafting their mission statement. “I just wanted to glorify God,” ...

Cynicism among Christians appears as a collection of negative attitudes and expectations. Those attitudes may be directed toward ourselves or others, the church, conversions, gospel progress, growth in sanctification, and even toward God himself. A clear biblical example appears in Malachi: “It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts?” (Malachi 3:14). But cynicism may be a deep attitude of heart or mind, even if it is not spoken out loud. Cynicism today, as at any time, contradicts the three vital signs of Christianity according to Paul: faith in Jesus Christ, love for all the saints, and hope as we await the return of Christ (1 Corinthians 13:13; 1 Thessalonians 1:2–3; Colossians 1:3–6). The general cure for cynicism is to cultivate and increase our faith in Christ, our love for God’s people, and our firm hope in the return of Christ. Alongside that general cure, however, God has given us many specific cu...

Words are powerful. They transform lives and make history. They birth nations and topple empires. They make peace and fuel wars. They make covenants in marriage and wound those we most cherish. They change hearts and give news of eternal life by the power of the Holy Spirit. Words are foundational to everything we think, do, and say in all of life. Nevertheless, words are not ends in themselves. Words exist because God spoke them into existence that He might communicate with us. He spoke the world into existence and has graciously spoken to us in His sacred Word. When He created us in His image, He gave us the gift of speech in order that we might commune with Him in prayer, fellowship with one another, hear and preach the life-giving gospel, train our children in the way they should go, and open our lips that we might proclaim His praises. However, we have abused God's gift. Rather than praising God, we take His name in vain. Rather than building up one another, we flatter, g...