Bible Feed

Having explored how the Bible uses the terms 'devil', 'satan' and 'demons', Paul and Dan now turn to the whole subject of whether the Bible talks about fallen angels.  Is the phrase 'sons of God' used to refer to angels?  If so, does that include spiritual beings with independent power to oppose God and his people?  Using the framework of Michael Heiser's book, Unseen Realm, they start to examine what is termed the 'Divine Council' worldview.  This involves grappling with some of the most mystifying parts of the Bible text - but hey, we're just ordinary people trying to understand the Bible better!

Dan and Laurence step into the New Testament for an introduction to the three letters of John.  After exploring the stark contrasts and Torah references in the first letter they then see how the second and third letters apply the theory from the first letter to two opposite situations. And finally, little children, keep yourselves from idols...uh?

Laurence and Paul finish our series on the 5 books of Moses, the Torah by looking at Deuteronomy.  It turns out that this section doesn't conclude with the people of Israel reaching their destination, then the main character dies (sorry for the spoiler...)! Instead they find that this book acts as a stage-setter, defining how leaders of this ancient people will be described for the next 600 years.  Remarkably, they also find Deuteronomy making a surprise appearance at the end of that history, just before Israel were exiled to Babylon. 

In this 3rd episode in the series, Paul and Dan go off on a tangent to think about demons.  They start by looking at where they appear in the Old Testament and find them linked to the idols worshipped by the peoples around the ancient Israelites and presented as having no real existence or power.  When they come to the Gospels they explore why they suddenly appear so often there and why they are linked with certain types of illness.  They conclude with the overriding point that God is the only source of power and so Christians have no need to fear them and can safely ignore them while embracing the love of God expressed through his Son.

Paul and Dan continue their exploration of how these 'characters' appear in the Bible.  In part 1 they reached a preliminary conclusion that they are used as terms to personify our inherent tendency to want to go our own way rather than God's way.  In this episode they look at many more of the biblical passages that refer to the devil and satan and try to categorise them to get a comprehensive view of what they mean.