Jer 7:23-28 / Lk 11:14-23
Possession is not just a state of anxiety, and Jesus was not merely a master therapist. He wasn’t curing mental illness but expurgating the demonic. Psychology concerns itself with the emotional response to being possessed; Jesus faced the demonic head-on and was able to heal a person by ridding him of the demon is influence that controlled him. If Jealousy is ruining your life, you have to arrive at deep-seated realization about who you are and what life is about before that demon will depart. If envy is giving you violent thoughts, you have to change the way you see things before it will leave you alone. If greed consumes you, you have to face this adversary to be free of it.
-Thomas Moore
Writing in the Sand
What, like the demons, seems to control me and make it hard to respond to God at work in me?
In earlier biblical books like Job, the satan or accuser is a kind of Grand Inquisitor who tests human faith. After the exile, Satan was understood as evil spirit, subordinate but hostile to God, struggling with God for domination of the earth, and tempting humans from following God’s ways.
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