CS wants to know about our adversary! She has been reading through the Old Testament and has discovered "numerous places where 'an evil spirit from the Lord' was sent, ie: Judges 9:23; 1 Sam. 16:14-16 (and other references within Saul's story)." She also states, "I've also read about a 'deceiving spirit' sent by the Lord (1 Kings 22:19-22). I think I see that these are situations where these spirits are sent by God, or allowed by God, for justice purposes and with people who aren't following or obedient to the Lord." But she wonders how this relates to us. CS asks, "Does the sending of evil spirits, as in the OT histories, still take place? If so, what does that look like and are there NT references?"
What a great question! It's a good one because there are way too many pat answers out there. There is also a MAJOR misunderstanding that I often hear from Christians. Answering CS's question will allow us to help her, plus blow away some of this doctrinal flotsam.
I am a member of the Evangelical Theological Society. "ETS" publishes a journal with a very catchy and informative title, the "Journal of the Evangelical Theology Society," abbreviated JETS. In the September, 2007, issue of JETS is an article entitled "Satan: God's Servant, written by Sydney Page. I am still working on getting a PDF copy of the article that you can download, but I don't have anything for you yet. The article is worth reading for anyone who wants to go deeper with some of the things that we will say. If you have access to a Bible College or Seminary library, the article is found in JETS 50/3 (September, 2007) 449-65. Much of what I will say in the next two posts is drawn from this article. More coming tomorrow...
I didn't know you were part of ETS. Cool stuff! Have you heard anything about the regional conference this spring? Apparently its in Memphis sometime in March (I think... its on their website), Wayne Grudem and Darrell Bock are going to be speaking. Could be interesting.
Posted by: Alex Marshall | December 19, 2007 at 04:31 PM