Wednesday, March 13, 2013

The Face of the Enemy

I do believe it is helpful to realize that we have enemies in the spiritual realm who want to destroy us (Ephesians 6:10-13; 1 Peter 5: 8-10; 2 Corinthians 11:1-3). That the problems we encounter are not just accidents, but there really is someone out there working against us. But there is a danger in carrying this so far that we start to see everyone who opposes us or disagrees with us as an agent of Satan. There are two problems with this. Satan is smarter than that. He and his minions can be subtle, sneaking in unawares and getting two people who think they are doing what is right at odds with each other through clever misdirection (2 Corinthians 2:11; 11:14; 1 Timothy 3:6,7). Also, we are not as right as all that (1 Corinthians 3:18; 8:2,3; Proverbs 26:12). If we believe that we are always right and that no one else, especially anyone who disagrees with us, could possibly have anything useful to contribute, we are the ones who have fallen into the snare of the devil, not those who oppose us.

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2 comments:

  1. kc bobMarch 13, 2013 at 3:16 PM

    The idea of Satan is an interesting topic. He is not omnipresent yet many speak of him in that sense. In my thinking the dark kingdom is probably better represented as many devils or demons istead of one central fifgure.

    That said, my thinking is that tempter is probably the most accurate name for devils/demons. As people give in to temptation they do all sorts of bad stuff to others. I think this is mainly the way that the demonic operates. Not that they cannot on rare occasions demonize.

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  2. Mike Erich the Mad TheologianMarch 13, 2013 at 10:03 PM

    I agree that demons are multiple it is just easier sometimes to speak of the leader of the group when speaking of them. I would also agree the that the main thing they do is tempt. I also believe that there are degrees of demonization and it need not always be a extreme case like that of the Gerasene demoniac. But I still think we need to avoid jumping to the conclusion that there is demonization involved when the situation can be best seen as simply temptation.

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