0:04

Hello and welcome to the Enter the Bible

0:06

podcast, where you can get answers, or at

0:08

least reflections on everything you wanted

0:10

to know about the Bible. But we're afraid to ask.

0:13

I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker .

0:14

I'm Katie Langston.

0:16

And our guest today again

0:19

for part two of this episode

0:21

is or the series is

0:24

Dr. Jeremy L Williams. He's the Assistant

0:26

Professor of New Testament at Brite

0:28

Divinity School at Texas Christian University,

0:31

and the author of

0:33

a forthcoming book in the fall here

0:35

called Criminalization in Acts of

0:37

the Apostles: Race, Rhetoric, and

0:39

the Prosecution of an Early Christian Movement.

0:42

So welcome back, Jeremy. Glad

0:44

to have you with us.

0:46

Glad to be back.

0:48

All right.

0:49

Thank you for having me.

0:49

So. Yeah. Thank

0:52

you. So

0:54

this is part two of a single

0:57

subject. So for those listeners

0:59

who happen to have

1:01

come across this

1:04

on its own, you might want to go back and listen

1:06

to part one first. But

1:08

we're still addressing a question

1:11

that came into our website

1:13

at Enter the Bible. Org. And

1:16

the question goes like this: My confirmation

1:18

students want to know where does the devil

1:20

come from? Did God create

1:22

the devil and why would God do

1:24

that if God did create

1:26

the devil? And so in part one,

1:29

in answer to this question, we

1:31

spent a fair amount of time,

1:33

as you might imagine, in the

1:35

Bible. I'm an Old Testament

1:37

scholar. Jeremy is a New Testament scholar,

1:39

and this is Enter the Bible. So

1:41

we talked about the figure of Satan,

1:44

both in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament

1:46

and the New Testament, and

1:49

talked about the kind of development of the idea

1:52

of this figure in

1:56

various books of the Bible and including

1:58

in some works

2:00

that came between the Old Testament and the New Testament,

2:03

like some of the Dead Sea Scrolls

2:05

or a book called Jubilees,

2:07

which is a Jewish

2:09

book that recounts

2:11

some of the same stories in the

2:13

Old Testament. So we see this development

2:16

of from the Satan as a kind

2:18

of accusing figure or prosecuting

2:20

attorney in Job,

2:23

to the Satan or Satan

2:26

or Beezelbub or whatever

2:28

name you want to call him, as really a

2:30

demonic force or a oppositional

2:33

force to God in the New

2:35

Testament. So

2:38

we want to, I don't know

2:40

that we, and we talked about the

2:44

the story of Satan being a fallen

2:46

angel. So in that sense,

2:49

I suppose we answer the the listeners

2:51

question is, yes, God did create

2:54

Satan, but not as an evil being,

2:57

but as as a good being. And

2:59

that Satan rebels. But

3:02

what else? What else do we want to say? I know

3:04

we talked in part one, Jeremy, about the

3:06

usefulness of Satan. I think you , the

3:08

usefulness of thinking about Satan.

3:11

Do you want to start with that and

3:14

we'll get back into the topic?

3:16

Yes. I

3:20

believe it's important, especially when we think

3:22

about biblical

3:24

texts. And for those who

3:27

are believers and are faithful

3:29

Christians who believe that God

3:31

inspired these texts to recognize

3:34

that God speaks

3:37

but sound doesn't travel in a vacuum. Sound

3:40

has to vibrate

3:42

off of material. And

3:45

and for when it comes to biblical texts,

3:47

God's Word vibrated off of

3:50

the experience of the writer's lives.

3:53

And one feature of their lives that

3:55

I think is important when we think about the Satan,

3:57

is that these are people who were chronically

4:00

and frequently oppressed,

4:02

colonized, and subjugated. And

4:05

so part of

4:07

the way that they heard God speaking

4:09

to them was through experiences

4:13

of oppression and experiences

4:15

of a foreign rule and

4:17

domination and the

4:20

Satan or the devil,

4:22

or some type of spiritual force

4:24

that there

4:26

seemed to be outside of their own powers,

4:29

even as a collective group. Became

4:32

a useful trope for thinking about

4:35

how in the world could a God

4:38

who loves them has all power

4:40

and is able to defend them?

4:42

How? How can

4:45

they reconcile being

4:48

in relationship with a God like that,

4:50

when such terrible oppression

4:53

and tragedies and calamities

4:55

have befallen them? And a useful,

4:58

um, I would say, literary trope,

5:00

and then or we could talk about a spiritual idea,

5:02

however we want to parse it out, became

5:05

the idea of the Satan.

5:07

And and see this

5:09

idea in particularly

5:12

in like Daniel and then

5:15

particularly have the early

5:17

Jesus followers of the New Testament started

5:19

to think about the

5:22

way that in these

5:24

end times, these

5:28

imperial ruling forces

5:31

were really portrayed

5:33

as beasts,

5:36

creatures and demonic

5:39

imps, or ultimately

5:43

the minions of the devil.

5:45

Because these people who are

5:48

writing and penning and discussing

5:50

God's word are living in these scenarios

5:53

of oppression, domination. And so,

5:56

so Satan becomes a way

5:58

for them to rationalize

6:00

a world that otherwise

6:03

wouldn't make sense with

6:05

a God who was supposed to be with

6:07

them and who they're in covenant with. And

6:09

so from that perspective, thinking

6:12

about how the Satan is a tool

6:14

of oppressed people to

6:17

concile and to make sense of a

6:19

world that is otherwise

6:21

nonsensical, I think is

6:23

something worth interrogating.

6:27

Now that's really helpful. I really I

6:29

like that metaphor a lot, or

6:31

analogy of God speaking,

6:33

but not in a vacuum, right?

6:36

That God speaks in people's

6:38

experiences and history, and that's

6:41

a really beautiful way of putting it. Thanks for

6:43

that. So

6:45

yeah, so the so the Jews and

6:47

then the early Christians with

6:49

them who are first of all Jews

6:52

and then more Gentiles,

6:54

right. They're experiencing

6:57

this oppression. They're experiencing

6:59

kind of event after

7:01

event that seems to

7:04

at least call into question

7:06

the idea of an all powerful, loving

7:08

God. And so then,

7:11

so the re seems to be this dawning

7:15

realization or

7:17

idea of spiritual

7:20

forces that then are opposed to God

7:23

that, you now,

7:25

instead of assigning all the bad stuff

7:28

to God, it

7:30

really makes more sense to think, well, maybe

7:32

there's something besides

7:34

God that's working against God, right?

7:37

So let me ask the...

7:40

And...Oh, go ahead, Katie.

7:41

Well, I was going to say I'm

7:43

going to channel my inner skeptic, which

7:46

she's never far from the surface anyway.

7:48

But, you know, I

7:51

could imagine someone saying, well, that

7:53

is a likely story,

7:55

right? Like bad things happen.

7:58

And instead

8:01

of just concluding that therefore

8:03

there is no God, you're

8:05

going to just invent this

8:07

like bad guy and say,

8:09

well, it's his fault that all the that

8:12

all this has happened, right?

8:15

And so yeah,

8:17

I would, I would want to kind

8:19

of wrestle with that a little bit like I

8:21

would um, posit

8:25

that perhaps as

8:28

they are, as

8:30

they're asking those questions and

8:32

as they're, you

8:35

know, considering what's

8:38

going on, I don't know that they're inventing

8:42

this as much as they are finding

8:44

words and symbols

8:47

and ways to express

8:49

a reality that they're experiencing.

8:53

Well, I feel like I feel like you resolved your

8:55

skepticism by the end of your

8:57

statement. I think you resolved

9:00

it. It sounds like...

9:01

Throwing out one possible way. One possible

9:03

way to think through that. Yeah.

9:06

Because I think that part of what

9:08

you raise is, is

9:12

that certainly this is a

9:14

way to to give God

9:16

a way out. Yeah. To

9:19

say, well, well, God didn't really do it. It

9:21

was the devil

9:21

It was the devil.

9:23

But by the, but what you got to at the end

9:25

was that people

9:28

really had to make

9:30

sense of, of their world.

9:33

And, and it works.

9:36

Um, and one of the, one

9:38

of the things that's worth noting is

9:41

that, the

9:43

reason why I wanted to highlight the oppressed

9:46

status of the people, because

9:49

it makes a lot more sense

9:51

when people do not have their hands

9:53

on levers of power to

9:55

recognize that

9:57

there are intermediaries

9:59

in between them and real

10:02

power. That's

10:04

not an experience that would seem necessarily

10:07

untenable, that

10:10

when we think about marginalized

10:12

people, whether the enslaved or whether

10:14

immigrants or people with

10:17

disabilities, it's not

10:19

difficult for them to see that people

10:21

who have privilege and power can function

10:23

one way, and that there are

10:26

things in between that

10:28

that are that are keeping

10:30

them from from having access

10:32

to those, those other rights and privileges.

10:34

And so in that way, rather

10:36

than to castigate

10:39

the entire framework,

10:43

especially if one presumes that that

10:47

that wholeness is attainable in this world,

10:50

then there has to be some forceful, powerful

10:52

thing in between. And

10:54

I think that, so

10:57

now you have me theologizing. And I've warned, I've

11:00

warned before.

11:02

You did warn us. But this is good. This

11:04

is good.

11:05

But I think that. Um,

11:08

creating satanic opponents

11:14

is a way to

11:18

make sense of situations

11:20

that are difficult to comprehend. And

11:23

I say that in

11:25

antiquity I talked about the empires. But

11:27

I think in contemporary times we easily

11:29

can point out when this happens negatively.

11:32

Right. Or we can talk about certain groups

11:34

that point to other groups

11:37

and want to demonize them or exclude

11:39

them or, or to like, put them

11:41

in hell, et cetera. But what's interesting

11:44

too, is on, on, on

11:47

the other side, if the more conservative

11:49

side is who we would want to pinpoint that

11:51

on, the more conservative, the more progressive

11:53

side often similarly

11:56

has its own devils that it likes to name

11:59

and call out, like

12:01

neoliberalism and and

12:04

sexism and homophobia

12:06

are demons that need to be destroyed.

12:08

Right? But isn't this some utility?

12:11

Right.

12:11

Yeah.

12:12

Utility to calling out patriarchy

12:14

and kyriarchy as like if

12:16

we use the Ephesians idea,

12:18

you know, that spiritual wickedness

12:21

in high places, right?

12:23

Yeah.

12:23

And so so the language is it's

12:26

plastic enough to be

12:28

dangerous, but also

12:30

a useful way to think about systems

12:33

that are not working perfectly that,

12:36

that, that there's there's a way

12:38

to say, I still think this can work,

12:41

but this is not ideal the way it is now.

12:44

These forces, right, that

12:47

the systems, these sorts of things, they kind

12:49

of take on a life of their own,

12:51

right? Like what you think about

12:53

people that get caught up in,

12:55

you know, in mob mentality, or

12:58

you think about the ways in which

13:01

we participate in these systems

13:03

and perpetuate them, you know,

13:06

even without wanting to, there

13:08

is a sense in which, like, they really

13:11

do like have their own

13:14

energy and propelling,

13:16

you know, movement forward like a force

13:18

of power, right? So I yeah,

13:21

think, you know, in a, in a skeptical

13:23

kind of worldview, kind of

13:25

sciencey kind of,

13:27

you know, and post-enlightenment kind of world.

13:30

These are hard concepts

13:33

to, to wrap our minds around. But

13:35

I think you kind of see it

13:37

happening.

13:40

Yeah, I was going to go along the same

13:42

lines. Katie, I think there are certain things

13:44

that happen, at least for me.

13:46

I'll just speak personally that I

13:49

do believe there are evil forces, that there

13:51

are evil spiritual forces. I don't think it's just

13:54

an invention. You

13:56

know, to explain things, I think,

13:59

and maybe because

14:01

I can't figure out otherwise,

14:03

like how things like the Holocaust

14:05

happens or slavery or,

14:08

you know, genocide. Or maybe

14:11

we can just attribute all that to human sin.

14:14

But sometimes, as you

14:16

say, it does seem like things,

14:20

movements or mobs

14:22

kind of take on a life of their own.

14:26

And it's I

14:29

find it useful anyway. And again, I'm just

14:31

speaking personally. I find it useful to talk

14:34

about that in terms of spiritual forces.

14:38

I do want to say, and

14:41

I think it's important to say that time

14:43

after time, and you referenced this, I

14:45

think, in our first the first episode.

14:48

Jeremy. Uh, that

14:50

that time after time, the New Testament affirms

14:53

that these, these forces, whatever

14:55

they are, not equal to God,

14:57

right? That that God is, is

15:00

always more powerful. And

15:02

we see that especially in Revelation, ut

15:04

in other texts as well, right, that,

15:07

that there

15:09

may be there may be forces that

15:12

work oppositional to God and

15:14

to God's people, but

15:16

they're not as powerful as God.

15:20

So like in 1 Peter 5,

15:22

you know, the devil prowls around like a roaring

15:24

lion. Resist him firm in your faith.

15:26

Right. There's a there's

15:29

it's not an inevitable kind of

15:33

downfall, right? That that the devil

15:35

can be resisted or these forces,

15:37

however you want to characterize it, can be resisted.

15:39

Yeah. Like when

15:42

Jesus tells Peter in the garden

15:45

of Gethsemane that that Satan desires

15:47

to sift through you like wheat.

15:50

It seems that there's a point of decision,

15:52

right?

15:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

15:55

And that, you know, ultimately, I

15:57

think the hope of the Christian faith

15:59

and the and and and the hope

16:01

of the resurrection is that those

16:04

forces have been defeated,

16:06

you know, and will be defeated in

16:09

Jesus Christ.

16:10

And I think that there are there

16:13

are and one and going back to one of

16:15

my earlier points and where I want to kind

16:17

of reiterate it again, is that

16:20

when people are on

16:22

the underside of power, it

16:24

is very easy to see the entire world

16:26

as being controlled by Satan. And

16:29

that and that what's actually more difficult

16:31

to believe, and I think there was a little bit of conversation

16:34

about this before, is that God is

16:36

good. It may be much more

16:38

difficult to believe that then, that Satan

16:40

is real, but that evil forces

16:43

are in control of the day, right?

16:45

Yeah.

16:46

Um, like with those

16:48

atrocities that you mentioned,

16:50

Kathryn. Holocaust, enslavement,

16:54

we think about the climate crisis

16:56

as they we're experiencing, like when,

17:00

when a handful

17:02

of corporate plutocrats can

17:04

determine the fate of the world, it

17:07

would seem it would seem that

17:10

is harder to believe that God is in control,

17:14

to have this type of regime

17:16

and the faith and

17:18

the perseverance component

17:20

is, is in actually

17:23

observing the world as it is.

17:25

And to say that

17:28

that a lot of the way that the world

17:30

currently operates is under the influence

17:32

of the evil one. And

17:35

I offer that because an

17:37

article I wrote on on revelation

17:41

argued that often we think about that

17:43

text as just about the end of the world.

17:46

But there are three ways that I think it's

17:48

important to look at it. That

17:50

one is that it's about power

17:52

and mapping power in the Roman

17:54

Empire. The second,

17:58

outside of power, it's about perseverance.

18:02

The goal is to remind those

18:05

who are committed, those

18:07

who are faithful to continue

18:10

to persevere through,

18:13

through this system, even when it seems

18:15

that that your

18:18

opportunity for vindication

18:20

is far away. But

18:23

to know that ultimately you'll

18:27

have victory is very

18:29

meaningful. But the challenge

18:31

with that is that, just like

18:33

any message, this kind of message in

18:35

the wrong hands becomes

18:38

support for labeling

18:41

people who are oppressed as demonic and needing

18:43

to be eradicated. And so the

18:46

difficulty with the nimble language is

18:48

that it can be used against its

18:50

original purpose too.

18:53

Now, that's a really important point,

18:55

Jeremy. Like this language,

18:58

like the imagery of Revelation

19:00

s really helpful and has

19:02

been historically helpful to those who are

19:04

oppressed. But if

19:06

used by the oppressor, it can,

19:09

you know, that kind of war imagery can be really

19:11

dangerous. So yeah, very,

19:14

very important caveat about that

19:16

kind of imagery.

19:17

I do wonder if there is, you know, going

19:19

back to the usefulness

19:21

of these kinds of concepts, like one,

19:24

one useful aspect of it could

19:26

be that, um.

19:30

That in a sense, thinking of

19:32

it as a power or a force

19:34

or an entity or something like that

19:38

can depersonalize it. In other

19:40

words, the person. Right? You don't

19:43

say this, this person

19:45

or this group of people themselves

19:47

are evil and must be eradicated. It

19:49

would be instead understanding

19:51

that that the fight is not against flesh

19:54

and blood, but is against the

19:56

forces of evil, and that there's a

19:58

way in which that actually calls us

20:00

back to remembering

20:02

the humanity and

20:04

the, you know, of our fellow

20:07

image bearers, of other

20:09

human beings, that that it's not

20:11

okay to actually demonize

20:13

a person, because that's not

20:15

who our fight or argument is

20:18

with.

20:19

When I as

20:22

you, as you heard in my bio , I'm C. M. E . And so

20:24

but I didn't get baptized as an infant.

20:27

I still had to come

20:29

down and accept, joined

20:32

the church and got baptized, although

20:35

three modes, you know, pour and sprinkling were available, got

20:37

immersed. But on the day that I decided

20:39

to join the church, as we called

20:42

it, my grandmother called

20:44

Meemaw, she rang out with this song and

20:46

said, Satan, we're going to tear your kingdom down

20:49

because you've been building your kingdom

20:51

all over this land, Satan.

20:53

We're going to tear your kingdom down. And it has several verses. We're

20:55

going to pray your kingdom down,

20:57

Satan. We're going to moan. You can say the preachers

21:00

are going to preach your kingdom down right.

21:02

And then in that verse about the preachers are going to preach

21:04

you down. You've been building your kingdom all

21:06

in the house of God, right?

21:08

Oh, wow.

21:09

And so that song evoked some

21:11

really powerful images that, that

21:13

now kind of having done my training, I can go back to

21:15

kind of the, there's a folksiness to

21:18

it, but there's something I think that

21:21

has actually animated a lot of my work and my

21:23

activism and my, in my engagement

21:25

is that there is there's a real

21:27

job to do

21:30

going around tearing Satan's

21:32

kingdom down. Sometimes

21:34

we imagine that we're preventing it from growing.

21:37

But in a lot of places it's settled

21:39

and established. When we when we look at the

21:41

laws that are coming out of Florida and where I live

21:43

now in Texas, it looks like Satan's

21:45

kingdom is thoroughly established

21:47

and is expanding. And so

21:49

the work is to tear

21:51

it down. And

21:53

I think that for the early Jesus followers, like

21:56

those in Revelation, for those who had

21:58

just lost their temple in Jerusalem

22:00

when it seemed like God's presence was lost, that

22:03

Rome looked like it was getting stronger,

22:05

and their their

22:07

comrades and their experience and their traditions

22:10

were getting weaker. And so

22:13

part of the hope is that not

22:15

only will Satan's

22:17

kingdom ultimately fall, but

22:21

we have some power to to

22:23

take a brick or two out of it while we're here.

22:27

Amen.

22:28

Even I try to avoid, like, war like images,

22:30

but I do think that some sometimes

22:32

this idea of tearing down a kingdom, I

22:35

think tearing down a kingdom is peaceful, right? Like,

22:37

not not necessarily like waging war

22:39

with another kingdom, but maybe tearing down one

22:42

that can that can be active peace.

22:44

That works. Yeah.

22:46

That preaches. That's good. Yeah.

22:50

So in, in, in

22:52

our Lutheran tradition

22:54

that Katie and I are in, at

22:57

baptism, either

22:59

you know, whether it's a baby or adult,

23:03

the parents or sponsors or the

23:06

one being baptized are asked

23:08

the parents and sponsors answer for

23:10

if the if the baptized is an infant,

23:13

do you renounce Satan and all his

23:15

works and all his ways? It's the it's

23:17

similar kind of thing, right? I renounce

23:20

them and then you say, do you believe in God the Father?

23:22

Do you believe in? And you recite the

23:24

Apostles Creed. So Satan

23:26

and all his works and all his ways to renounce

23:29

that, I think that goes along the same

23:31

lines of what you're talking about tearing Satan's

23:33

kingdom down.

23:36

It presumes that they're standing right.

23:40

That's right

23:42

Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah,

23:44

yeah, I think it's it's just realistic

23:47

about that. And yeah, that's

23:49

a really powerful call. Thanks for sharing that. I

23:51

don't know that song, but that's, that's

23:53

really a powerful way of thinking

23:55

about the Christian vocation.

23:59

Right. To tear Satan's kingdom down.

24:02

So just one more question though. Like we're

24:04

talking about, you know, all of this

24:06

in context of,

24:09

you know, forces and powers. And

24:11

we kind of tracked in part one, we track the

24:13

history of how,

24:15

you know, how these ideas

24:19

evolved and how people

24:21

began to describe what they had experienced

24:23

in these terms. But like,

24:25

where did we get the , like,

24:28

dude with the pitchfork or

24:30

like the you know what I mean? Like some

24:32

of these ideas that seem so

24:34

pervasive in our culture now, if they're not

24:37

rooted in Scripture,

24:39

like where, where

24:41

did they come from?

24:44

Thank you. Thank you for this question. And

24:47

in the first part, we got through Hebrew Bible,

24:49

got through most of the New Testament. And

24:53

what we didn't get to some of the,

24:55

the things the text like the apocalypse

24:57

of Paul that comes after the New

24:59

Testament, probably

25:02

third or fourth century,

25:04

where you start to see these, these different

25:06

gradations of the afterlife

25:09

and, and torment in,

25:11

in hell and layers of hell et cetera.

25:14

But, but even there, you don't

25:16

get the types of images that many of

25:18

us are familiar with, like the pitchfork

25:20

and the horns kind of thing. Those

25:22

really evolve out of texts like Dante's

25:25

Inferno and and Milton's

25:27

Paradise Lost, like, like

25:29

although hell

25:32

and the devil, they make appearances in biblical

25:35

texts, these texts,

25:37

these later texts make hell hotter,

25:40

make the devil more personal and fierce.

25:43

They take it to another

25:45

level.

25:49

Sorry, but

25:51

yeah.

25:53

And part of it is a

25:56

I think, not to go too far

25:58

down this road, is to just imagine

26:01

the experiences that people

26:04

engage to, to to need

26:06

this as, as either a way to warn

26:08

people to avoid. John Chrysostom

26:10

always talked about how hell

26:13

was a useful concept for teenagers

26:15

to get them to behave correctly.

26:19

I need to I need to maybe roll that out more

26:21

in my parenting. I got too much

26:23

of this gray stuff going on. Like, God

26:26

loves you, you're forgiven.

26:29

You know? You know, I

26:31

think the fear of eternal

26:33

torture is, is probably a little over

26:35

handed to get teenagers to behave. I

26:37

think it could be. It could work.

26:39

It can. It can be effective.

26:41

Yeah, indeed I do,

26:44

yeah, I do mention that sometimes

26:46

on staff with my colleagues

26:49

coming from, let's just say a more

26:51

punitive tradition than I am now in,

26:54

I'll say, you know, if we want them

26:56

to donate more, we could just

26:58

tell them that if they don't, they're

27:00

going to be punished for eternity and

27:03

my experience is that works pretty

27:05

well. Oh

27:13

my gosh.

27:13

And I think one thing, just to loop

27:15

it all the way back around to our conversation around

27:18

Satan and kind of what I mentioned at the beginning of

27:20

this segment is, is

27:22

and this might be a little, a

27:24

little too, too meta, but I think your

27:27

listeners can go here is is

27:30

what work is

27:33

Satan doing? For

27:35

whom and to what effect? One of my teachers, Karen

27:37

King, always ask this question: for whom

27:39

does the text work? For whom and with what effect?

27:42

And I think asking that question around Satan

27:44

is also important, because

27:46

it helps us to

27:48

see the ancient

27:50

author, the more contemporary author,

27:53

and our own work,

27:55

and it helps us to show the work

27:57

we are thinking of the concept of the devil.

28:01

For whom does it work and with what

28:03

effects? And

28:05

then we can see are there

28:07

moments, as we talked about in this time, where

28:10

using an image of Satan

28:12

can be useful to help a group

28:14

be resilient against insurmountable odds,

28:16

but it can also be very, very

28:19

problematic and harmful

28:21

when used to demonize entire

28:24

groups of people and use that as logic

28:26

for their extermination. And so

28:29

it's a dangerous concept

28:31

to use, and people have used

28:33

it in multiple ways. And

28:35

so in some ways, I know some communities

28:39

choose to not use it at all because of all

28:41

of its negative implications. But

28:44

what I think can be worthwhile

28:47

is to recognize when

28:49

it's important to see that Satan's

28:52

kingdom is erupting in some places and

28:54

really need some direct action

28:57

and confrontation. But the tricky part,

28:59

and this goes back to something we said in the first segment,

29:01

is we have to be careful

29:04

in identifying the

29:06

work of evil, the work of the enemy,

29:08

and make sure that we're not misidentifying

29:11

it with the work of God's Spirit.

29:14

And that's that's the real

29:16

work, and that's an internal work.

29:19

And it should make us very, very cautious

29:22

in making these assessments on

29:24

who is being moved by the devil and

29:26

who is not.

29:28

And I'd suggest that

29:30

kind of that kind of discernment

29:32

needs to happen best in community.

29:36

And with prayer, that

29:39

it's not so much an individual discernment

29:42

as it is a community discernment. But you're

29:44

right, that's hugely important work,

29:46

right? To discern what, what

29:49

kind of spirit is at work in

29:51

various events?

29:53

Wow. Well, we could probably do many,

29:55

many more parts of what has been

29:58

a two part, two parter

30:00

already, which which we don't

30:02

do that often. So this

30:05

has been really, really interesting and helpful.

30:08

And dear listener, I hope

30:10

that this isn't too much for your

30:12

confirmation students, but

30:14

at least maybe it could be food for thought for

30:16

you, and you can figure out how to present

30:18

it to 14 year olds. But

30:23

in any case, thank you

30:25

so much Jeremy. This has been a

30:28

wonderful conversation, super

30:30

fruitful, super interesting, and just glad

30:32

that you could be with us today. And

30:35

for those of you who have joined us, yes,

30:38

for those of you who have joined us either

30:41

on YouTube or in your

30:43

favorite pod catcher, thank you for

30:45

being with us as well. You can get

30:47

more resources, commentaries,

30:49

conversations, articles,

30:52

all kinds of stuff at Enter the Bible.

30:54

Org and of course, please

30:57

rate us. You know, five

30:59

star ratings and reviews, especially

31:02

on your favorite podcast app are super,

31:04

super welcome. It

31:07

helps other people find the show. And

31:09

although the best way to do that is to share it with a friend.

31:12

So if you do that, we would appreciate it.

31:14

Thanks for being with us today.