This week’s session in our course on healing is called "Basic Principles Of Deliverance." We discuss the Christian's authority to cast out demons, some common terms in deliverance ministry, demonic activity in human beings, and some important considerations concerning expelling demons from people. This was followed by a question-and-answer time.

Class notes are available here as a PDF.

If you like, you can also watch on my YouTube channel.

EXCERPT: The Church carried on powerful deliverance ministry in the Book of Acts and in the first centuries of the Church.

From its inception, the Church’s deliverance ministry propelled evangelism: “And the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed; and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed. And there was great joy in that city” (Acts 8:6-7).

In the first several centuries after Christ, casting out demons was perhaps the main ingredient in evangelism. There is a famous secular historian at Yale University, a professor named Ramsay MacMullen. The American Historical Association named him the greatest living historian of the Roman Empire. People have often debated how the Church was able to Christianize the Roman Empire, but Professor MacMullen—the greatest living historian of the Roman Empire—claimed that the ministry of casting out demons was the single greatest factor. {Affiliate link}

For hundreds of years after Christ, Christian leaders spoke boldly about the ability of ordinary Christians to cast out demons. The Church Father Tertullian, who died in 220 AD, said that the greatest proof of Christianity was the truth of the Word. But he said the second greatest proof of our faith was the testimony of the demons who have been conquered by Jesus!

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