Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 that no apostle ever does it and no letter ever tells us to. I want to look carefully at the passages that are used to…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 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 it, and the only question is whether we will fight with the equipment God supplied or with something we invented. A great deal of what…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 passages in the English-speaking church. A short book sold many millions of copies and turned these lines into a daily formula for a great many…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 and loose blessing, favour and finances, often within a single sentence. The phrase occurs twice in the New Testament, both times in Matthew, and in…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 built on the assumption that it is, and many believers have been made to feel unspiritual for hesitating. I do hesitate, and I want to…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 that intercessors can then target those powers in prayer. It grew up alongside territorial warfare and is usually presented as its research arm. I have…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 has been enormously influential in the last forty years, particularly through the church growth movement and its offshoots. I want to describe it fairly before…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 get through a prayer meeting without someone addressing the enemy out loud, binding him, cancelling his assignments and ordering him off the premises. I want…
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 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 a neutral activity. It is worship, and worship belongs to God alone. Scripture nowhere invites us to pray to angels, records no example of anyone…