Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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. The abyss is presented as a real location in the unseen world, a place of restraint for spirit beings, and the demons who met Jesus…
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 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 in this area. Someone has read a book, or a relative has described a light and a figure and a sense of overwhelming peace, and…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 us angelic activity around the spread of the gospel, and yet he never once has an angel preach it. That combination is deliberate, and once…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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, and that Scripture treats the presence of the unseen host at our gatherings as a settled fact rather than a special occasion. It is not…
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 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 we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!” It is one of the great throwaway lines of the New…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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. Films use it, greeting cards use it, and well-meaning relatives tell grieving children that Grandma has her wings now. Scripture teaches something different and, I…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 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 sincere Christians come away convinced they have been leaving a resource untapped. I want to handle this carefully rather than dismissively, because the people drawn…