Dr Paul Allen

The essential content of Christian preaching, Paul says, is the mystery of the gospel. He writes that the preaching of the Word of God is seen in "the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints" (Col. 1:26). A mystery? All around Asia Minor and the ancient world at this time, there were mystery religions and mystery cults , and there were some who thought, especially from the Roman perspective, that Christianity was just another one of them. After all, it had its mystery. And Paul said, "Guilty as charged." Yet this is not a mystery of esoteric knowledge. This is not a gnosticism of elitist intellectuals. No, this is a mystery that was hidden by God until it could be publicly revealed in the incarnation of Jesus Christ , in His death, burial, and resurrection. This is a mystery! There is something deeply mysterious about Christian preaching, both in terms of its communication and in terms of its c

Page 18v: Healing of the two demon-possessed, Mt 8:28-34 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “Be quiet!” Jesus said sternly. “Come out of him!” Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him ( Luke 4:35). What about demonic possession ? There can be no doubt but that the Bible presents us with a real demonic realm, a host of fallen angels who hate humanity and who seek to destroy us because we are made in the image of God. We are so familiar with the stories of Jesus casting out demons that we often miss an important aspect of their uniqueness. The miracles Jesus did were not really unique. The prophets of the Old Testament had also multiplied food, healed the sick, and raised the dead. One thing they had not done, however, was cast out demons. Moreover, in the rest of the New Testament after Jesus’ resurrection, we see few cases of demonic possession and the subject does not occupy much attention in the epistles. It would be an error to think tha

English: The Temptation of St. Anthony by Martin Schöngauer c. 1480-90. Engraving. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) There has been a renewal of interest in the work of Satan . Hollywood has given us a host of films to whet our appetite for the satanic. Within Christian circles, there has arisen a concern for ministries of deliverance . Some of these deliverance ministries have developed a bizarre and radically unbiblical view of demon possession and deliverance. We may hear that particular demons cause particular sins . There is, they say, a demon of alcohol, a demon of depression, a demon of tobacco, and so on. Others say we can recognize the departure of a demon from a human soul by a manifest sign that is linked to the particular point of bondage. You may have listened to recorded talks from some of these well-known deliverance ministers in which they teach the signs of departure of the demon. A sigh, for example, indicates the departure

Medieval book illustration of Christ Exorcising the Gerasenes demonic (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Matthew 9:32–34 “When the demon had been cast out, the mute man spoke. And the crowds marveled, saying, ‘Never was anything like this seen in Israel ’” (v. 33). Matthew tends to arrange the information about Jesus ’ life topically. Chapters 5–7, for instance, collect Christ ’s teachings about His own authority. In like manner, the evangelist devotes chapters 8–9 to material that depicts Jesus’ authority apart from His actual instruction on the subject. Instead, Matthew focuses on miracles that illustrate the Savior’s control over the natural (8:1–27; 9:18–31) and the supernatural (8:28–34; 9:32–34). This passage concludes Matthew’s record of the Lord’s authoritative signs and wonders with His miraculous loosening of a mute man’s tongue. Specifically, demonic oppression renders the man unable to speak (v. 32). The Greek word describing the man’s condition may also indicate that the ev

Gustave Doré, Depiction of Satan, the antagonist of John Milton's Paradise Lost c. 1866 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) There has been a renewal of interest in the work of Satan . There have been a host of movies and books about evil angels, wolves and evil vampires. Hollywood has given us a host of films to satisfy an appetite of the satanic. Within Christian circles, there has arisen a concern for ministries of deliverance . Some of these deliverance ministries have developed a range of  views on how to deliver and release people of demon possession and oppression. For example, some Christians believe there is particular demon that causes a particular sins . There is, they say, a demon of alcohol, a demon of depression, a demon of tobacco, and so on. Others believe the rise across the world in the last few years, for demanding the sin of homosexual marriage an affront to God , is driven by demonic forces worldwide or combined with human sin? Is this a correct way of looking a