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Satan and Demons

Most Americans don't believe in demons--not really anyway.

We might say we do, because we've heard the words in church or skimmed past them in the Bible. But functionally, we live as if the only real forces at work in the world are psychological, sociological, biological, or political. Evil, in this view, is either personal failure, chemical imbalance, or bad systems built by bad people.

There's truth in all of that. But it's not the whole truth.

The Bible assumes--without embarrassment or apology--that reality includes unseen spiritual forces, both good and evil. No cartoon villains with pitchforks and spandex. Not spooky horror-movie ghost tropes. But real, created beings whose influence can be subtle, structural, cultural, and sometimes terrifyingly personal.

For many modern Western Christians, this is uncomfortable territory. We either overreact and make it weird, or we under-react and quietly ignore large portions of Scripture. Both options leave us ill-equipped to understand the world we actually live in.

So let's try something different: Let's talk about Satan and demons carefully, biblically, and without theatrics.

Reading Fast and Slow

Combing through verse by verse brings up a lot of questions and interpretive decisions, and I've realized this is a years-long journey, not a quick project. However, I think I can make it useful faster if I implement the same method I use for my personal Bible study: reading fast and slow. I daily read through the Bible quickly with audio, and I get through it in a little under a year--I get some amazing insight here and there because I'm getting the repetition and connections that I would normally miss if it's been months between the scrolls. But I also do deep dive studies slowly and meticulously. In the context of the Bible connections project, I think I can do something similar: I can go through and grab all the family-based connections quickly, and also slowly work through the more nuanced connections on another track.

Saul's New Heart

In 1 Samuel, we read that God changed or gave Saul a new heart when he was anointed as the first king of Israel. It's a strange phrase that brings to mind the kind of thing we would expect in the new Kingdom age--empowered by the spirit of Jesus. The phrase has stuck in my mind, and I wanted to see if there were any other references to God changing or giving someone a new heart in the Hebrew Bible or New Testament.

Reflections on Psalm 19

My grandmother called this afternoon to discuss the apparent synonymity of "law," "testimony," "precepts," "commandments," and "ordinances" in Psalm 19:7-11. She was curious if there were any distinctions between these terms, as they all seem to refer to God's instructions in some way. She had dug into the definitions and pulled out some interesting nuances, but I wanted to explore the original Hebrew to see if there were any differences in meaning or emphasis that might not be immediately apparent in English translations.

Reflections on Ruth

I chose to dissect Ruth as a test subject for my biblical connections project because it is a short book that is fairly self contained. I didn't expect to find anything surprising or insightful as I worked out how to standardize or automate my process for importing and tagging the text. Never underestimate the Bible.

Project Update

Wow, it's been over a year and a half since I last posted on my personal blog. Life has been busy, and I've been trying to keep up with everything else. I'm shocked that I didn't post through the Intuit layoff and transition to SwineTech or all the crazy things I've done and learned since then. Here's an update: