Luke and the Demons

Last night, I remembered just in time that it was Dec. 1, and that we had signed our covenant documents that said we'd read the Bible 15 minutes a day. I didn't want to break our pledge on the first day. And since my spouse, Carl, is my covenant partner, we sat down together.

For a minute, it was overwhelming--the whole Bible, where to start? We went back to Luke, which Carl had been reading during our "read one Gospel the whole way through" challenge. We read chapter 8 and most of chapter 9.

I was struck with how much Jesus is interacting with demons in these 2 chapters. When I was a child, these passages would have been explained by my mom, who would have said that demon possession was how people understood mental illness.

However, as a grown up, I've met many people who believe in literal demons. It's interesting how different Christians interact with the Bible and use it to interpret modern life.

I also thought of Jon's post, of what Jesus is doing in Mark. It seems a similar thing here, although in Chapter 9 of Luke, Jesus gives the disciples authority, which suggests he's building a movement, not just hanging out with humanity. In some ways, I like Mark's vision better. I like the idea of Jesus taking awhile to figure out what he's doing here on earth (although in Mark, does he ever figure it out? I suspect that he doesn't, or at least, not as authoritatively as in the later Gospels). It gives me hope for my own life's rambles.