Does Demon possession happen in the west today?
It’s impossible to read the New Testament and not see Jesus and the early church facing demonic possession. Summary statements of Jesus’s ministry, such as Matthew 4:24 and Acts 10:38, show us that Jesus not only encountered demon-possessed people but also healed them. Despite varied symptoms of possession and methods of deliverance (e.g., Matt 15:22–28; Mark 1:21–28; 5:1–20; Luke 13:10–17), the demons were no match for the Son of God. The early church also encountered demon-possessed people (e.g., Acts 5:16). Philip’s ministry included exorcism (Acts 8:5–8), as did Paul’s (Acts 16:16–18). As Bill Cook has observed, “Those who [encountered] demonic resistance—whether it was persecution, demon possession, or magic—showed no fear of confronting it in Jesus’s name.” Is Possession Still Possible? The question before us in this article, though, is whether demon possession happens today. Three caveats are in order. First, we must stand on the truth that “the human heart is the biggest proble...