FBC Neches: On Demand

Contemporary Western Christianity has allowed pervasive lies to infiltrate our churches, our families, and our personal faith that corrupts our reliance on the mercy, grace, and sufficiency of Jesus as our savior and mediator. Much like the Corinthians, we have bought into the ideology that WE have to change ourselves, WE have the power inside of us, and WE are ultimately the masters of our own destiny; whereas the Gospel says Jesus will transform us, empower us, and is our Master and King!

In today's episode we begin our exploration of the philosophical, theological, and epistemological contributions of Augustine of Hippo. We will look at the development of demonology through the lens of the practical philosophies offered to us by Augustine and set the conversation up for a look at how Dante Alighieri will use Augustine's demonology to fuel his satire known as "The Divine Comedy".

In today's episode we explore the development of demonology from Tertullian to Iraneaus, and a little bit of everything else! We track the foundations of our contemporary understanding of "how" demons operate and where we get those origins in church history. 

Plus...alot of other fun stuff too!

It is easy for us to fall into the same religious trap that we find Israel falling into over and over again…legalism. The reason is more simple than we could ever imagine; we like being in control and with legalism, our faith is structured to bullet points that we can check off as if it is some spiritual “to-do list.” Christ came to set us free from the tyranny of sin and the tyranny of our corruption of the Law!

Often times we find ourselves reducing the Christian life to nothing more than a discrete form of moralism with theistic overtones. The reality is that the expectation of holiness in the life of a believer is not merely observant, it is for an explicitly outward focused purpose. Everything about our life is meant to be evangelistic, including our devotion to holiness.

What can we take as doctrinal sure and what do we need to consider "opinion"? We go back in time and rely on the church father Origen to help bring the discussion of the development of demonology within the Christian context into the light. 

Forgiveness is hard, but it is even harder when the pain that sin inflicts is targeted towards those we love! The command to forgive is not simply a moral impetus that Christians are supposed to obey, it is much deeper than that because forgiveness is a reflection of the transformational power of the Gospel and the Lordship of Jesus over every domain of our lives.

In this episode, we get back on track (sorta) with our discussion on how the Christian doctrine of Demonology developed after the death of the Apostles around 100 AD. Well, we introduced the topic anyway; then when proceeded to occur was a jump down the rabbit hole and a full on exploration of Wonderland until we got to the castle of the Queen of Hearts with AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). Have fun!

One of the benefits and burdens of living the Christian faith in community is that we are called to bear each other’s burdens, which means that at times we must hold others accountable. The “how” and “why” of that accountability matters greatly for the restoration of a fellow believer and the relationship we have with them. (2nd Corinthians 1:23 - 2:4)

This episode of MMCS is devoted to the development of a basic demonology as presented in the Epistles of the New Testament. By looking at the testimonies of Paul, Peter, James, and John we can see how they viewed demons and the devil by pinpointing their evil work in the church and outside of it to the full scale deception of humanity...the deception of the believers and the unbelievers alike!