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 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…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 the answer turns out to matter for how we think about temptation, about places, and about the limits of the enemy. The short version is…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 say here is where demons came from, and readers have to assemble the picture from a number of passages that were written for other purposes….
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 to it. God answers, and sometimes the answer walks in through a locked door wearing the appearance of a man. I want to trace what…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 asked for a name. Nobody in Scripture is ever rebuked for replying to an angel who has come to them. The distinction that matters, and…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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. Scripture does not laugh at the question. It takes the unseen world seriously, and it tells us enough to answer honestly without pretending to know…