We delve into the historical background of the book of Judges and examine its structure, highlighting the cyclical pattern of Israel’s faithfulness and failure. After exploring the darkest chapters towards the end of Judges, illustrating Israel's moral decline, we throw in a bonus positive note by briefly discussing the book of Ruth!
We continue their exploration of how these 'characters' appear in the Bible. In part 1 we reached a preliminary conclusion that they are used as terms to personify our inherent tendency to want to go our own way rather than God's way. We now look at many more of the relevant biblical passages to get to know the devil and satan better.
Paul and Dan embark on a multi-part exploration of the terms Devil and Satan and how they are used through the Bible. They aim to lay some foundations by thinking about how our worldview might affect how we read the Bible and (eventually) start to explore some key verses. The initial conclusion is that they may not be referring to a supernatural being, as is commonly supposed.
The writer to the Hebrews explains that Jesus died to “destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14). What does that mean? The devil is in the detail if you look carefully.