Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Date: February 05, 2016 11:20PM
I find the subject of the occult to be very interesting. It really is assigned a great deal more meaning than it deserves. The word simply means "hidden", or "covered from view". Latin origin, I think, Heck, you can say the same about God, Jesus, The Holy Spirit. I guess that makes them occult, because they are most certainly hidden from anyone's view!
The aspect I find the most remarkable about the occult, or the Devil, Satan, undergoing warfare, or whatever, is the amount of power we are willing to attribute to whatever we choose to call our concept of occult. The archetype of the Devil is nearly silent in the OT in comparison to that large body of work. Eden, and Job, with a mention in Ezekiel and Isaiah are about all we have to go on. And in Job, there is no animosity between God and Satan. It's just a conversation between the guys. Then, in the NT most mentions come from Paul, someone who probably never laid eyes on Jesus.
I think that if we are going to assign the moniker of "all powerful" to God, then the notion that Satan is to be given any power at all is is sort of a tacit agreement that God isn't really powerful enough to handle our troubles. Or, maybe we subscribe to the theory that suffering is essential to attain spirituality, so then Satan becomes a real necessity, because God wouldn't hurt his little ones, right? So in that regard, Satan becomes the patsy. Got to have an antagonist in order to suffer properly.
Well, anyway, I think we give the occult a lot more credit than is due. I'll go back to my ouija board now.