Dr Paul Allen

The Encyclopedia Britannica states that glossolalia—speaking in tongues—“recurs in Christian revivals of every age, e.g., among the mendicant friars of the thirteenth century, among the Jansenists and early Quakers, the converts of Wesley and Whitefield, the persecuted Protestants of the Covennes and the Irvingites” (Volume 27, pp. 9–10, 11th edition). The Irvingites were 19th-century forerunners of the current recipients of the charismatic gifts. The Reverend Edward Irving was pastor of a Presbyterian church in London, England, in 1822, when his preaching on the need for a “new Pentecost” began to attract wide attention.  By 1833, his emphasis upon ‘the charismatic gifts” had become too great (people had begun to speak in tongues!), and he was deposed from the Presbyterian ministry for heresy and moved to Scotland. But among his widespread following, a new denomination was formed, called the Catholic Apostolic Church, and stress on the charismatic gifts was continued. The Irvingi...

Will my PC give me wisdom? Will ChatGPT or Claude give me God's will for me? Where do I start? I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. (Job 42:2) I see at least four methods that God uses to lead us in his will. I put them in four D’s to help me remember them. Decree. God sovereignly decrees and designs circumstances so that we end up where he wants us to be, even if we don’t have any conscious part in getting there.  For example, Paul and Silas found themselves in jail, and the result was the salvation of the jailer and his household (Acts 16:24–34). This was God’s plan, not Paul’s. God does this often—putting us in places we did not plan or decide to be in. This is the leading of decree. It is unique above the other three leadings because it includes them (since God’s decrees include all our decisions) and it happens infallibly (since “no purpose of [God’s] can be thwarted,” Job 42:2). The other three leadings of God involve our being con...

  By John Starke THE CRAB NEBULA is an exploding star about forty-two hundred light years away. I first learned about it in Annie Dillard’s Teaching a Stone to Talk . Light from this exploding star first became visible to earth in 1054. It was a supernova then, so bright it could be seen during the daytime. A thousand years later, the star is still exploding. What explodes for a thousand years? What has the density and size to keep up this pace? If you look at the Crab Nebula today through binoculars, it looks like a little ring. If you stare at it, even with earnest stillness, you will see no movement. The naked eye clothed with binoculars looks at this exploding star, and it seems more like a statue. “Photographs of the Crab Nebula taken fifteen years ago seem identical to photographs of it taken yesterday,” and yet the Crab Nebula is expanding at the rate of seventy million miles a day, and it’s been doing that for millennia. 1 We are in a universe where something that has incr...

A vibrant prayer life is possible for you. I know it may not seem this way, but the whole thing is rigged for triumph. That doesn’t mean that prayer will be easy or comfortable. It won’t. In fact, we should prepare for the long, slow haul of discomfort, confusion, and frustration, laced with joy, love, stability, and wholeness.  There aren’t a few techniques merely to pick up so that next week the struggle for prayer will be over. Instead, there are realities that we need to grasp that lead to pathways (rather than techniques) toward intimacy with God.  These realities—like the incarnation of Christ, our participation in Christ’s exalted status, and his participation in our troubled and lowly place—rearrange how we think about ourselves, God, and the world around us. This often means unlearning lies about ourselves, God, and the world that have shaped how we’ve lived and made decisions so far. That will take time because it’s not merely changing our minds or our perspectives b...

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature. (Colossians 3:5, NIV) David Robinson says, “The reason God was able to use the jawbone of an ass to give Samson victory over the Philistines was that it was completely dead, and there was no flesh left on it (see Judges 5:15).  Consider that if you want to be used by God, 'the flesh” must go and you must die. That’s not a popular message; we’d rather focus on the benefits and the blessings of serving the Lord. But there’s a price to be paid.  Jesus didn’t tell us to make converts; He told us to make disciples.  He made it hard to join, easy to leave. He wanted only those who were committed unto death. He said, “Any of you who does not give up everything cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:33, NIV). What a price tag! Are you truly His disciple? The Message paraphrases Paul in these words: “Everything happening to me in this jail only serves to make Christ more accurately known, regardless of whether I live or d...