Dr Paul Allen

What is cremation? Cremation is a process that uses intense heat (1400–1800 °F) to incinerate a body. After the body is vaporised and reduced to bone fragments, these fragments are pulverised into a sand-like powder. The final step involves placing the “cremains” in a container and returning them to the surviving family. The word “cremate” is actually a sanitised version of the crass “burning a corpse.” What is the history of cremation? Early Christianity While there were a few exceptions (notably the Hebrews), cremation was a common practice in the ancient world. That rapidly changed, however, with the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire. As Francis Schaeffer explains, “Gradually Christianity came to Roman Avenches. We know this by studying the cemetery of that time—the Romans burned their dead, the Christians buried theirs.” 1 In some respects, the care with which early Christians disposed of their dead through the burial process would not have gone unnoticed in the pagan wo...

If you find yourself dismissing parts of Scripture to protect a preferred belief or lifestyle, take that as a serious warning sign. You are allowing satan to deceive you. Many Christians are in danger of being misled… Not because God’s truth is unclear, but because it’s possible to resist it when it challenges our desires or requires us to change. Scripture warns that when people prefer what’s false over what’s true, they can become increasingly vulnerable to deception. As 2 Corinthians 4:4 explains, “the god of this age” works to blind minds to keep people from seeing the light of the gospel. That’s why the Bible also cautions us to take truth seriously and respond to it with humility and obedience. When a person repeatedly rejects what God has made plain, God may allow them to experience the consequences of that refusal. LOOKING CLOSER AT 2 CORINTHIANS 4:4 Paul explains the (Satanic) source of the hard-hearted, veiled state of those who have rejected his apostolic message. The full e...

Dunn devotes a similar amount of space in Baptism to the writings of Paul as to those of Luke. He discusses every passage in the Pauline corpus that, in his opinion, alludes to conversion-initiation.2 Again he believes he is on strong ground, asserting that for Pentecostal views of Spirit baptism, “Paul seems to be more of an embarrassment than an asset, so that time and again expositions of this doctrine conveniently ignore him.”3  For Dunn, when Paul’s insights are duly noted, they “knock the Pentecostals’ case on the head” and cut “the ground away from under the feet of the Pentecostal.”4  Perhaps the “killer blow” to Pentecostal doctrine, in his view, is Romans 8:9. As he has written recently, “the nearest Paul comes to defining the term ‘Christian’ is in terms of having, that is, of having received the Spirit: ‘if anyone does not have the Spirit, he is not Christ’s’ (Rom. 8:9).”5  However, while I will refer to Romans 8:9 later in this chapter, I will actually take 1...

Pentecostal alternatives to Dunn’s thesis are not uniform. When the variations are studied, some varieties prove stronger than others. With respect to Christian initiation, Petts and Turner are more convincing than Stronstad.  With respect to what exactly the empowering of the Spirit was for, Stronstad and Shelton are more accurate than, on the one hand, Menzies, for his concept is too narrow, and, on the other hand, Turner, whose concept somewhat misrepresents what Luke wrote, about both “prior works” of the Spirit and the inception of salvation. The Pentecostal gift of the Spirit was linked programmatically to other aspects of Christian initiation (Acts 2:38, which must be allowed its full force).  However, this did not mean that the early steps of discipleship could not occur without it (e.g., in Acts 8:4–24). However anomalous the Samaritan episode was, it indicates clearly both the conceptual distinctions to be drawn between coming to faith in Christ and receiving the Sp...

Luke provided similar hints in his narration of the mission of the church after Pentecost. A particularly strong hint concerning the Spirit’s prior work comes at Acts 9:10–19. Ananias, a disciple and therefore presumably in receipt of the Spirit, had a vision in which he heard the Lord calling.  That Ananias should have a vision was in perfect accord with the explanation, given by Peter on the day of Pentecost with reference to Joel 2:28–32, that the arrival of the Spirit ushered in a plethora of prophetic activity including seeing visions (Acts 2:17). It is perhaps, then, a little more surprising to find Paul, at Acts 9:12, also having a vision.  Paul was only to receive the Spirit once Ananias had reached him (Acts 9:17). Yet prior to his Spirit reception, Paul was already the object of divine activity for which Luke elsewhere offered only one explanation: visions come by the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:17). 80 Acts 26:16–18 is consistent with this, for here Luke presented the voic...

QUESTION TO DICK HARFIELD: Who is the prophet referred to in Matthew? DICK HARFIELD'S RESPONSE: Matthew 2:23 refers to a prophet whose identity has long puzzled scholars because there is nothing in the Old Testament or even the Apocrypha that mentions a Nazarene. One popular suggestion is from Judges 13:5, where it says of Samson, "the child shall be a Nazirite." However, Matthew does not say ‘Nazirite ’, and the word has no known link to the town of Nazareth; moreover, Jesus was not a Nazirite and is never described as one. Some believe Isaiah 60:21-22 was the prophecy of which Matthew wrote, because the Hebrew for a small twig is netzer — presumably close enough to be a prophecy that Jesus would be called a Nazarene, but not very plausible. I believe the real reason is closer to home, as you can read in The Mystery of the Nazarenes. We now know that Matthew’s Gospel was substantially based on Mark’s Gospel, the Greek manuscripts of which always refer to Jesus the Nazar...