What the Bible teaches about angels, demons, Satan, and spiritual warfare.
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 reasons we are told to test everything rather than to be impressed by displays of power. A miracle is not by itself proof that God…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 the whole armour of God so that they can stand against them. Neither statement makes any sense unless the enemy works to a pattern that…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 gets there. It began as the title of a local god in a Philistine city, picked up a sneer along the way, and ended up…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 is a reasonable assumption, since that is how hymns, poems and films have used it for centuries. It is also not quite what the Bible…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 far more often than you might expect. Sceptics raise it as an objection. Believers raise it because they have grown uncomfortable with the way some…
Reading Time: 11 minutesQuestion 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 I have ever undertaken. He steps into the story unannounced, speaks as God in the first person, accepts worship that no created angel would dare…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 in a single sentence and moves straight on to the preaching. There are a few hints, and they are worth gathering. But I want to…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 herd of pigs on a hillside near the Sea of Galilee is the whole biblical evidence, and a great deal has been built on rather…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Everything else he does runs downstream of that. Scripture uses…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 a synonym, but it is not an accidental one. The word chosen tells us how Scripture wants us to think about these beings, and the…