Titus Benton
Titus lives in the suburbs of St. Louis with his pretty wife Kari, adorable daughter Nora, and handsome son Malachi. He has worked in Student Ministry for 9 years in part- or full-time roles. He contributes to http://www.teensundayschool.com. When not cheering on the St. Louis Cardinals, he enjoyes listening to country music, eating greasy food, and reading John Grisham novels.
Understanding Satan
- By Titus Benton
- Published 06/20/2008
I don't know what got me to thinking about it recently, but the whole Satan thing is really confusing me lately. I mean, what do we really KNOW about the Evil One?
The Bible is relatively silent on the topic. "Satan" is only used in the Scriptures a hair over 50 times. One time he got David to count heads (1 Chronicles 21:1), one time he shows up in heaven, right there with the angels and all, to get God to let him work Job over a little bit (Job 1).
He's in the Garden of Eden, of course, or at least we assume so. He's called a serpent there, so he can look like a snake sometimes, apparently. In the Minor Prophet Zechariah he starts accusing the High Priest Joshua of stuff.
He's in the New Testament, too. Jesus talks about him a lot. One time they come face to face in a duel in the desert (Matthew 4). Jesus wins. Another time Jesus calls one of his good buddies, Peter, Satan (Matthew 16), which doesn't seem very nice and just begs the question of whether or not Satan was in Peter or just using Peter or maybe Jesus is exaggerating to make a point--who knows?
His alter-ego, "devil" appears only in the New Testament. It is there that we learn to put on lots of armor to protect ourselves from him (Ephesians 6). He has lots of snares (1 Timothy 3, 2 Timothy2). He's a lot like a lion (1 Peter 5), which doesn't sound too good for us.
Then there are more complicated theological matters, like where Satan came from and everything. Most say he fell from heaven. This comes from pretty obscure OT passages, on in Isaiah and one in Ezekiel, which definately have immediate meaning in thier day. Then you have Jesus reporting that he saw Satan fall from the sky (Luke 10) after the 70 went around driving out demons. Then, in Revelation 12, Satan is said to have been thrown down. This is where we get the idea of the big war in heaven. This apparently doesn't happen until after Jesus is born (Revelation 12:5).
The name Lucifer doesn't occur in the Bible (at least not in the NIV or NASB). It's impossible to ignore the influence of Dante's Inferno and Pilgrims Progress on our theology of Satan (Satanology?). It's also impossible to really get a grip on who Satan is, where he came from, what he's really able to do, etc.
Not that we should really immerse ourselves in such things, I was just thinking about it.
