This doesn't come up much in Reformed circles, and understandably. The Bible alludes to this kind of stuff about once. It is not high up on the list of importance. But it is also irreverent to God to say "it's not important" either.

The passage

One can assume that an angelic being is conversing with Daniel. This being mentions a struggle with the prince of Persia, which could be a mortal figure but I believe the context suggests that it, too, is an angelic spirit, if a dark one.

Without endorsing Frank Perretti's material, what would territorial spirits mean for Christian spiritual warfare today?

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J. B. Atken
John Knox PCA
Layman, M.A. student at Louisiana College

The Prince of Persia is Persia, and the Prince of Greece (v.20) is Greece...and Greece through Alexander the Great conquered Persia.

__________________
Larry Bray
Training for Elder - Reformed Presbyterian Church of Boothwyn, PCA
Boothwyn, PA - http://www.rpcb.org/

Free Online Reformed Seminary - http://www.tnars.net

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"The best Christian is still a poor Christian" - R.B. Kuiper

Spiritual warfare is very big in all courses on missions and in the missions community today.

Some of it is good I believe, correcting a Western Christianity that is over-much affected by Enlightenment thinking.

Much of the teaching on spiritual warfare, however, is also animistic. A missionary goes to an animistic country that sees demons behind every bush and envokes demons into themselves on purpose and the missionary borrows some of this animistic worldview, when most of it is illusion or trickery.

I say most of it, because I am not sure about all. It seems that if a pagan culture invited demons in enough times, I have to believe that they sometimes do come.


It does seem that spiritual battles rage behind the scenes of the world. It seems that spirits are being talked about in Daniel and they are behind the scenes of even world affairs.

But, today there are even a few groups (I think Global Mapping got started this way) of trying to map the demons that control different areas. That is crazy.

I have read missionary anthropologists that have got caught up in those and have spoken of such and such a spirit controlling this geographical area.

Of course, in my own neck of the woods, the locals speak of certain demons controlling certain pieces of ground. But there is no way to know. A few groups of Pentecostals in South America have "exercised demons" and in the exorcism process interviewed these demons in order to provide info on what demons control what areaa. But would a demon really tell you the truth? And why would we be trying to talk to demons anyhow?


A related topic is prayer walking: A belief in territorial spirits has led to a rise in prayer walking. We are to walk around a geographical location and force out these local demons. Often, groups will do this at the beginning of mission work to cleanse the area before they enter it with evangelistic efforts.

MY question to these is always, if prayer is powrful, why spend thousands of dollars to go walk around a city, pray from your bed at home and send that many to the missionary in that city!

Summary: I do think that a spiritual battle wages. But are part is not to get concerned about these spiritis but to obey God. We should never speak to demons, commend them directly or interview them. We prayto God to do His work. If there are territorial spirits, which there might be, we certainly ned not map them, or walk around them to vanquish them, but just keep doing what we're doing.

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Pergamum


"If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?"
-- David Livingstone

I don't think PoP is anything other than the prince (Cambyses) of Persia, who was regent while his father Cyrus was off battling, and did not support his decree to "return and rebuild," and who continued to deny all support to the Jews during his whole reign, once Cyrus died. It was not until he was dead that the Temple could be rebuilt.

Calvin says if Gabriel wasn't resisting him, he would have been an even worse tyrant toward the Jews. I agree.

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Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


When posting friends, kindly bear those words of earthly wisdom in mind:
Oh, that God the gift would give us
To see ourselves as others see us.
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