Angelology & Demonology

Question 08089 Not all demonic activity is the same, and the failure to distinguish between different forms of it leads to both unnecessary panic and unhelpful pastoral counsel. The two ...

Question 8059. Ouija boards are sold in toy shops and used at sleepovers, and that is precisely what makes them worth talking about. A thing packaged as a game is ...

Question 8057. Sleep paralysis is one of the most frightening experiences a person can have, and it is also one of the most misunderstood. You wake, you cannot move, you ...

Question 8058. Scripture forbids occult practices in the strongest language it uses about anything, and the reason is not that they are silly. The reason is that they are real ...

Question 8055. The question of whether a haunted house is a real thing comes up more often than you might expect, and rarely from people looking for entertainment. It usually ...

Question 8056. When people ask about ghosts and demons they are usually asking two questions at once. Do the spirits of the dead come back, and if not, what did ...

Question 8053. Can Christians be demonically oppressed? I believe they can, and I want to say so carefully, because this is an area where careless answers do real damage in ...

Question 8054. Whether demons can attach to objects or places is a question I get asked after house moves, after clearing out a relative's belongings, and by new Christians wondering ...

Question 8051. Paul says something in 2 Corinthians 4 that explains a great deal of what we see in evangelism. The god of this world has blinded the minds of ...

Question 8052. The words demonic possession, oppression and influence get used almost interchangeably in Christian conversation, and the confusion causes real harm. I have sat with people convinced they were ...

Question 08071 The practice of exorcism carries a great deal of cultural baggage, most of it supplied by films rather than by Scripture, and that makes it difficult to discuss ...

Question 8050. The phrase snare of the devil comes from Paul's letters to Timothy, and it is worth noticing how ordinary the context is. He is not describing an exorcism ...

Question 08070 Deliverance ministry covers a wide range of practice, from careful pastoral work with genuinely troubled people to something closer to a stage act. Because the label is so ...

Question 08068 Talk of spiritual strongholds has become so common that most believers assume they know what the term means without ever having looked at where it comes from. Conferences ...

Question 08066 Whether a believer may rebuke Satan directly is one of those questions where practice has run a long way ahead of the text. In some circles you cannot ...

Question 08067 The instruction to give no place to the devil is one of those phrases that has floated free of its context and now gets used to mean almost ...

Question 08064 Telling temptation from Satan apart from the ordinary pull of your own flesh is harder in practice than most teaching admits, and I think we should say so ...

Question 08062 The question of whether generational curses are real comes to me most often from people carrying something heavy. There is alcoholism in three generations of the family, or ...

Question 08063 Whether spoken curses can affect a Christian is a question I have been asked in quiet voices more than once, usually after something unpleasant has happened. Someone has ...

Question 8060. Tarot cards have moved a long way from the fairground. They are sold in high street shops, recommended as tools for self-reflection, and used by people who would ...

Question 08061 I get asked about reading horoscopes more often than you might expect, usually by someone who has done it for years without thinking twice and has suddenly started ...

Question 08080 Satan and Antichrist are not the same being, and confusing them is one of the commonest mistakes in popular prophecy teaching. One is a fallen angelic creature with ...

Question 08081 The False Prophet is the least discussed of the three figures who dominate Revelation 13, and that is a pity, because his role explains a great deal about ...

Question 08078 The prayer of Jabez occupies two verses buried in a genealogy, and for a few years around the turn of the century it was among the best known ...

Question 08079 Satan's role in the tribulation is described more fully than at any other point in Scripture, and Revelation gives us a sequence rather than a snapshot. He is ...

Question 08076 The question of whether praying against principalities over cities is a legitimate Christian practice sounds technical, but a great deal hangs on it. Entire prayer movements have been ...

Question 08077 Binding and loosing has become one of the most quoted and least examined phrases in contemporary Christian speech. It is used to bind demons, bind sickness, bind circumstances ...

Question 08074 The phrase territorial spirits refers to fallen angelic beings thought to exercise influence over particular nations, regions or cities. The idea has become so embedded in some circles ...

Question 08075 Spiritual mapping is the practice of researching the history, religion and moral record of a place in order to identify the demonic powers believed to control it, so ...

Question 08072 Whether any Christian can cast out demons is a question that usually arrives with a good deal riding on it. Someone is frightened, or someone has been told ...

Question 08073 Territorial warfare is the practice of identifying and confronting demonic powers believed to rule over geographical areas, and then attempting to break their hold through organised prayer. It ...

Question 08093 Satan's authority is the subject of the strange title Paul gives him in Ephesians 2, where he is called "the prince of the power of the air, the ...

Question 08094 The covering cherub of Ezekiel 28 is one of the most discussed and most disputed figures in the Old Testament. For centuries readers have found in these verses ...

Question 08091 The phrase powers and principalities has become one of those bits of church vocabulary that everyone recognises and few can define. It sounds impressive from a pulpit, it ...

Question 08092 Spiritual blindness is the whole point of the verse where Paul calls Satan the god of this world, and if we miss that we will misunderstand the title ...

Question 08090 The prince of Persia in Daniel 10 is one of those figures who lifts the curtain for a moment and then lets it drop again. For three verses ...

Question 08085 Demonic judgement is a subject Scripture treats with more restraint than most of us would like. We are told plainly that fallen angels face a reckoning, and we ...

Question 08086 The spirits in prison of 1 Peter 3:19 have generated more commentary per word than almost any other verse in the New Testament, and Martin Luther famously admitted ...

Question 08082 The great chain of Revelation 20 is one of those details that decides far more than it appears to. How you read it determines whether you place the ...

Question 08083 Satan's release at the end of the thousand years is one of the strangest turns in the whole prophetic landscape, and I understand why people stumble over it ...

Question 08131. The question of why God create Satan in the first place is usually asked with more feeling than curiosity, and I understand why. If God knew what this ...

Question 08132. The phrase familial spirits gets used in two quite different ways, and separating them is the first job, because one usage points to something Scripture genuinely condemns and ...

Question 08128. Asking whether demons perform miracles usually follows something a person has witnessed or heard about, and the question behind it is a practical one. If something extraordinary happens ...

Question 08140. Paul tells the Corinthians that we are to judge angels, and from that single clause a whole industry has grown up teaching that believers hold authority over angels ...

Question 08141. Claims of angelic visitations arrive in pastoral ministry more often than people outside it would guess, and they rarely arrive at a convenient moment. Somebody stays behind after ...

Question 08138. The idea of angels at Sinai catches most readers by surprise, because Exodus 19 and 20 describe thunder, smoke, trumpet and the voice of God without mentioning an ...

Question 08139. Whether angels experience emotions sounds like a question for a slow afternoon, until you notice how much of the Bible's angelic material is emotional in tone. They shout, ...

Question 08136. Peter says that angels long to look into the things announced to us through the gospel, and it is one of those half-verses that people read past for ...

Question 08137. Whether Satan know Scripture is not really in doubt once you have read Matthew 4, because he quotes it there, quotes it accurately, and quotes it to the ...

Question 08124. The future of Satan is one of the few subjects on which Scripture is entirely unambiguous. There is no mystery about the outcome, no suspense, and no possibility ...

Question 08135. Working out what angels know turns out to be a surprisingly practical exercise, because a great deal of bad teaching depends on assuming they know rather more than ...

Question 08123. The present work of Satan is one of those subjects where Christians tend to know either too little or far too much, and I have met both. Some ...

Question 08121. Spiritual warfare is not an optional interest for unusually dramatic Christians. It is the reality every believer already lives inside, whether or not they have a vocabulary for ...

Question 08122. The practice of binding Satan has become so familiar in some circles that many believers assume it must be a plain biblical instruction, and are surprised to discover ...

Question 08119. Understanding what demons are is not an exercise in morbid curiosity. It is the difference between a believer who takes the enemy seriously without becoming obsessed and one ...

Question 08120. Few questions in pastoral ministry generate as much fear and confusion as whether demon possession is possible for a believer, and few have been answered so badly by ...

Question 08117. Knowing who Satan is matters more than most Christians realise, because almost every error in this area comes from a false picture rather than from a false verse ...

Question 08118. The fall of Satan is one of those subjects where Scripture gives us real information without ever supplying a narrative, and the gap between those two things has ...

Question 08116 Cherubim and seraphim are among the most striking and least understood figures in the biblical narrative. They appear at some of the most dramatic moments in Scripture, from ...

Question 08114. Scripture never gives us the number of angels, and I think that silence is deliberate. What it gives instead is a vocabulary of vastness, used repeatedly and by ...

Question 08115. The idea of guardian angels is one of the most widely held beliefs in popular Christianity and one of the least carefully examined. It appears on nursery walls, ...

Question 08113. Getting clear on what angels are is surprisingly difficult, because most of us learned the subject from Christmas plays, greetings cards and films before we ever opened a ...

Question 08111. What actually happens under hypnosis is less mysterious than most people assume, and getting that clear is the first step to answering whether it opens doors to demonic ...

Question 08112. Whether angels exist is a question I am asked far more often by Christians than by unbelievers, which tells you something about the state of our teaching. Most ...

Question 08108. The question of whether Eastern meditation can open doors to demons needs a definition before it needs an answer, because the word meditation is now doing duty for ...

Question 08110. Whether martial arts are spiritually dangerous depends almost entirely on which martial arts you mean and who is teaching them, which is why a blanket answer will always ...

Question 08106. Being afraid of Satan is more common among Christians than most of us admit in public. It shows up at two in the morning, or after a film ...

Question 08107. Protecting children from spiritual attack is one of those parental concerns that can either drive you to prayer or drive you slightly mad, and I have watched it ...

Question 08104. Whether one believer should try to cast out demons from another believer is a question I have been asked in tears more than once, usually by a Christian ...

Question 08105. When deliverance ministry does not seem to work, the person left standing there afterwards carries a weight that is hard to describe. They came forward believing, they were ...

Question 08101 Whether horror films can invite demonic activity is a question I get asked more often around the end of October than at any other time of year, and ...

Question 08102 The question of whether Christians should read occult books needs one distinction made before anything useful can be said. There is an enormous difference between a Christian book ...

Question 08100 The way the enemy attacks churches tells you a great deal about what he fears, and it is rarely what we expect. In my experience he is far ...

Question 08098 Understanding how the enemy attacks marriages begins with understanding why he bothers. Marriage was God's idea before sin entered the world, and Paul tells us it pictures something ...

Question 08099 When the enemy attacks families he is going after the oldest institution God ever made. Before there was a nation, a temple or a church, there was a ...

Question 08097 Asking whether something is demonic or psychological is one of the most delicate questions a pastor gets, and getting it wrong in either direction causes real damage. I ...

Question 08095 The idea that a third of the angelic host became fallen angels is so widely repeated that most Christians assume it is stated somewhere in plain terms. It ...

Question 08096 Knowing whether you are under spiritual attack is harder than most books on the subject admit, and I want to be honest about that before offering anything more ...

Question 08109. Whether yoga practice is spiritually dangerous is a question that divides thoughtful Christians, and I want to handle it in a way that respects both sides rather than ...

Question 10156. Satan's final defeat is described in Scripture with a clarity that leaves nothing to the imagination and no room for appeal. He is not an eternal rival to ...

Question 10155. The role of angels in the end times is far larger than most Christians realise, and Revelation is where it becomes impossible to miss. The role of angels ...

Question 08088 When James tells us to resist the devil, he is not handing us a slogan to shout at the ceiling. He is describing a settled posture that has ...

Question 08103 If you are carrying past occult involvement and wondering what to do about it, I want to say the most important thing at the very start. Jesus is ...

Question 08087 The question of Jesus preaching to demons between his death and resurrection comes up more often than you might expect, usually after somebody has read 1 Peter 3 ...

Question 08084 Satan's role in human sin is one of those subjects where we tend to overshoot in one direction or the other. Some Christians blame the devil for everything ...

Question 6017. It is tempting to blame the devil for our sins, and the temptation is almost as old as sin itself. Adam blamed the woman and by implication the ...

Question 8001. Angelic appearance is one of those subjects where our imagination has done far more work than our Bible reading. Ask most people to picture an angel and you ...

Question 8002. Do angels have wings? The question sounds trivial until you go looking for the answer, and then you discover that the Bible is remarkably selective about which heavenly ...

Question 8003. Female angels are everywhere in our culture and almost nowhere in our Bibles, and that gap is worth examining rather than glossing over. Every angel who takes human ...

Question 8004. Angelic bodies have puzzled thoughtful readers of the Bible for a very long time, and the reason is simple. Scripture calls angels spirits, and Scripture also shows them ...

Question 8005. Whether angels eat looks like a curiosity question until you notice how much rests on it. Scripture calls angels spirits, and Scripture also describes a meal in Genesis ...

Question 8007. Can angels die? Jesus answered part of this question directly, and His answer is the natural place to begin. Speaking of the resurrection in Luke 20:36, He says ...

Question 8008. Angelic emotions are more visible in Scripture than most readers expect, and once you start looking for them they are difficult to miss. Angels shout, sing, rejoice, long, ...

Question 8006. Angelic free will is one of those doctrines that seems abstract until you realise it is the only way to explain how evil entered a universe made entirely ...

Question 08126. Whether angels rebel again is one of those questions that sounds like idle speculation until you notice what is sitting underneath it, because the person asking is rarely ...

Question 08127. Whether Satan required permission to attack Job's children is not a puzzle for the study, because anybody who has buried someone they love and then read Job 1 ...

Question 8048. The words are among the most striking Jesus ever spoke to a friend. "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, ...

Question 8049. Of all the titles Scripture gives him, Satan the accuser is the one that touches ordinary Christians most often. We may never face a dramatic temptation or anything ...

Question 8046. Paul says it directly: Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. It comes in the middle of a painful passage where he is defending his ministry against ...

Question 8047. People ask me whether Satan can appear in dreams more often than almost any other question in this area, and they usually ask quietly, after a bad night, ...

Question 8044. Paul assumes that Satan's schemes can be recognised. He tells the Corinthians that we are not ignorant of his designs and he tells the Ephesians to put on ...

Question 8045. Can Satan perform miracles? The short answer is that he can produce genuine signs and wonders, that Scripture says so plainly, and that this is one of the ...

Question 8042. Ask most people where the name Lucifer comes from and they will tell you it is the devil's proper name, the one he had before he fell. It ...

Question 8043. The name Beelzebub turns up in the Gospels on the lips of people trying to destroy Jesus, and it has a long history behind it before it ever ...

Question 8040. When Jesus cast out demons the Gospels almost never tell us where they went, and the silence is consistent enough to look deliberate. Luke records crowds of deliverances ...

Question 8041. Whether Satan is a literal being or a poetic way of describing the darker side of human nature is not an idle question, and I get asked it ...

Question 8030. Reports of angel encounters during near-death experiences have become a publishing industry of their own, and I am asked about them more often than almost any other question ...

Question 8031. Whether demons are fallen angels is a question the Bible answers by implication rather than by definition, which is why it still gets discussed. Scripture never pauses to ...

Question 8032. Asking where demons live sounds like an odd question until you notice how much Scripture actually says about it. The Bible is not squeamish on the subject, and ...

Question 8034. Whether demons can take physical form is a question people usually ask because they have seen something, or because someone they trust has. I want to answer it ...

Question 8033. The bottomless pit turns up at some of the most dramatic moments in Scripture, and it is easy to read past it as atmosphere. It is not atmosphere ...

Question 8035. Whether demons can cause physical illness is a question the New Testament answers with more directness than many Christians expect, and with more care than many teachers show ...

Question 8036. Few questions at the meeting point of theology and pastoral care carry higher stakes than whether demons cause mental illness. Get it wrong in one direction and you ...

Question 8037. The phrase unclean spirits runs right through the Synoptic Gospels and the book of Acts, and most readers slide past it as a synonym for demons. It is ...

Question 8038. Lying spirits are not an occasional tactic of the enemy but the whole shape of his operation. Jesus said of the devil that when he lies he speaks ...

Question 8039. The question of demons and animals arises from one specific incident in the Gospels, and it is worth examining that incident carefully rather than speculating around it. A ...

Question 8020. Whether angels appear today is a question I get asked more often than almost any other in this category, usually by someone who has heard a story and ...

Question 8021. Whether we can see angels is one of those questions that people ask me quietly, usually after a service, usually because something has happened that they cannot explain ...

Question 8022. Whether we may speak to angels is a fair question, because the Bible is full of people who did exactly that. Zechariah answered Gabriel. Mary questioned him. Manoah ...

Question 8023. Whether we may pray to angels is a question I want to answer with real clarity, because the stakes are higher than they first appear. Prayer is not ...

Question 8024. The idea that we can command angels has become surprisingly common in certain circles, usually presented as a believer’s neglected authority. Conferences teach it, books promote it, and ...

Question 8026. Paul says that we will judge angels, and he says it in the middle of telling off a church for suing one another. "Do you not know that ...

Question 8027. The connection between angels and answered prayer is one of the quieter themes of Scripture, and it is easy to miss because the Bible almost never draws attention ...

Question 8029. The place of angels in evangelism is one of the most encouraging themes in the book of Acts, and one of the most consistently overlooked. Luke keeps showing ...

Question 8025. The idea that we become angels when we die is everywhere, and I have heard it spoken at gravesides by people who meant every word of it kindly ...

Question 8028. The question of angels in worship sounds either startling or sentimental, depending on what you already assume about Sunday mornings. I want to argue that it is neither, ...

Question 8009. Can angels and demons read our minds? The question matters more than it might first appear, because a great deal of anxious teaching about spiritual warfare quietly assumes ...

Question 8010. The Angel of the LORD is the most intriguing figure in the Old Testament, and working out who He is has been one of the most rewarding studies ...

Question 8011. Michael the archangel is one of only two angels named in the canonical Scriptures, and of the two he is the one consistently found in conflict. His name ...

Question 8012. The angel Gabriel is the second of only two angels named in Scripture, and where Michael fights, Gabriel explains. Every appearance follows the same shape. He arrives at ...

Question 8013. Named angels are far rarer in Scripture than most Christians assume. Ask around a congregation and you will hear Raphael, Uriel, sometimes Raguel or Sariel, and a general ...

Question 8014. The phrase host of heaven runs right through the Old Testament, and it does two quite different jobs depending on where you find it. In some passages it ...

Question 8016. The sons of God in Genesis 6:1 to 4 have been argued over for well over two thousand years, and the argument shows no sign of settling. Four ...

Question 8017. Abaddon and Apollyon are two names for a single figure, and Revelation 9:11 gives us both because John is writing for readers in two languages. He is called ...

Question 8018. The four angels bound at the great river Euphrates appear in Revelation 9:14 and 15, and the detail that stops most readers is not the binding but the ...

Question 8019 Among the most striking descriptions in all of prophetic Scripture are the living creatures of Ezekiel's inaugural vision and John's throne-room vision in Revelation 4. They defy easy ...

Question 60085 Few passages in the New Testament have generated more interpretive discussion than 1 Peter 3:18–20: "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that ...

Question 5020.Humans and angels are the Bible's two great orders of rational creatures, and comparing them is one of the most clarifying exercises in theology. Popular culture muddles them endlessly: ...

Question 3054. Is Jesus Michael the archangel? If you have ever spent an hour on the doorstep with Jehovah's Witnesses, you will have met this claim, for it is a ...

Question 3031. Jesus is superior to angels in a way that the New Testament, particularly the opening chapters of Hebrews, takes considerable care to establish, because a persistent confusion in ...

Question 8000. Angels and demons are two of the most talked about subjects in our culture and two of the least carefully studied in our churches, which is a strange ...

Question 8015. Nephilim giants are one of those biblical subjects where sober readers go quiet and speculative readers go loud, and the result is that most Christians have no settled ...

Question 08171. Every October somebody asks whether Christians celebrate Halloween or whether we should have nothing to do with it, and the question usually arrives with a costume already in ...