Weird Stuff in the Bible

Was Peter the First Pope? What I’m going to talk about today is perhaps THE MOST misunderstood verse in the entire world today. And I say that because there are about 1.4 billion Catholics in the world. If we were to consider Catholics a denomination of Christianity, then we Protestant denominations are far outnumbered. We who are Methodists, Pentecostals, Baptists, Southern Baptists, Free Will Ba...

We all know we have a soul. That our bodies may die, but we all have an eternal soul that will live on forever and ever. All human beings have a soul. This is something that sets us apart from plants, animals and people who skip the theme song when they’re watching The Office.  And then the Bible also speaks sometimes of each of us having a spirit, and we think of that similarly to the soul. It’s...

One of the most puzzling verses in the whole Bible is Malachi 1:3, where God says “Jacob I have loved;But Esau I have hated” If that doesn’t make you do a double-take while you’re reading your Bible, I’m not sure what will.  Again, that’s God speaking. It’s written by Malachi, but it’s a quote from God. The same God who will be telling us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us jus...

Imagine sitting on a hill, wondering about your life, when suddenly the heavens open, and you see creatures so otherworldly they defy description. Four faces on each of their heads, gleaming metal, fire, and a throne surrounded by lightning. That’s where Ezekiel’s story begins—and where we’re headed today. The prophet Ezekiel sees something that very very few people in the Bible ever saw: a vision...

This is a re-airing of a popular interview I did earlier this year with a man who has an amazing story of deliverance. He shares some of the story here, and gives some helpful advice for if you would come up in a similar situation in your own life. Find Bill's book right here: https://www.amazon.com/Day-Satan-Called-Encounter-Possession/dp/0892968982/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&am...

Most Christians are regularly outwitted by Satan, and most Christians have no idea about his schemes- his devices- his designs.  We like to blame Satan for a lot of problems in life. The degradation of society, the strife in our families, the flat tire I got last Tuesday, whatever happened to Marvel after Endgame… And I think it’s a fair question to ask: what the heck is this guy’s problem? What’s...

I received a thought-provoking message from one of our listeners this week: Alana writes in: I find it interesting in Acts 14 when the crowd claim that Paul and Barnabas are Zeus and Hermes that Paul and Barnabas do not deny that Zeus and Hermes exist. That Paul and Barnabas simply point out that they are only mortal men. Now, there’s a couple ways you could read Paul’s deflection in this story, w...

Where do demons like to hang out? You know, other than the DMV, the Grammy Awards, or in that sauce they put in Chipotle wraps. Where would you go- or perhaps a better way to say it, where should you avoid - if you want to stay away from demons? Well if you asked the writers of the Bible, they had an idea about where demons liked to congregate. I mean, certainly you can find a demon just about any...

Naaman the Syrian had it going on. A great job, a great reputation, all the money he needed- oh, and he had leprosy.  In those days, this was a death sentence. In those days, a great job, a powerful position, favor with kings, all the money in the world, none of it meant anything if you had leprosy- because if you had leprosy, you were gonna die. Desperate for an answer, Naaman travels to the land...

Today’s lesson is too important to wait.  And I almost didn’t do it. Because these verses that we’re studying today are going to come up again in the book of Enoch, and I’m planning on starting a book of Enoch series here on the podcast early next year. And so you might hear some of this information repeated again in a few months, and I almost didn’t create today’s lesson so that I wouldn’t be rep...

There is a parable which I believe is not technically a parable- I believe it’s a true story- called The Rich Man and Lazarus. Jesus tells this story in Luke 16. And there’s a lot of strange things you could point out about this story, but what always sticks out to me is where Lazarus goes when he dies in this story. Luke 16:22 So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abrah...

The devil really really doesn’t want you to listen to today’s episode. Because this is going to blow the door wide open on one of Satan’s schemes that he uses to try and make us ineffective as Christians. But, I’ll also tell you how to overcome it.  Last year, one of my pastor friends who was preaching through the book of Daniel and came across the strange story in chapter 10. And he commented tha...

It was a dark and moonless night when King Saul, cloaked in fear and despair, wandered the desolate wilderness of Mount Gilboa. His once-mighty heart had grown heavy, for the Lord had turned silent—no dreams, no prophets, no answers. His enemies, the Philistines, loomed at his doorstep, and without divine guidance, Saul felt utterly forsaken. Desperation drove the king to a forbidden path, one he...

I’ve been doing this podcast for about a year now and I can’t believe I haven’t done an episode about this yet.  Today, we’re going to be talking about territorial spirits. And that phrase refers to the fact that spirits are assigned to certain sectors of the earth.  Many Bible-readers aren’t aware of this little tidbit about how the spiritual realm works, and you may question whether this is in t...

We’re going to continue our foray into demonology today, and we’ll wrap up this story of Jesus and the demoniac of Mark 5.  If you’re not familiar with this story, it’s the guy who lived among the tombs and could break chains with his bare hands.  This is the guy who said “I am Legion, for we are many.” There were potentially thousands of demons within this man. And this is the story that ends wit...

It was the week before Halloween in the fall of 1988 when Bill Scott picked up the phone at his job at a Christian radio station and his life was never the same.  What follows is a story of demonic possession, deliverance, and a long list of what to do and what NOT to do when standing up to the powers of darkness.  I’ve been doing a series on the abilities of demons here on this podcast. Bill join...

Welcome back to Demonology class.  I didn’t have this class in the school of ministry that I attended for three years.  I’ve never heard of a Bible college offering a class in exorcism.  I’ve never heard of a seminary giving a degree in demonology.  And yet, when Jesus gave His disciples a job to do, He said to preach the Kingdom, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and cast out demons....

I remember being a younger Christian and sharing a meal with a couple of older pastors, who got to talking about a Bible story of demon possession. It may have been the one we’re in today, actually.  And one of them just mentioned, quite offhandedly, that of course, demon-possessed people in the Bible were actually just dealing with sickness and mental issues. And the other quickly agreed.  And I...

I said it on the first episode of this podcast: if you’re a modern Christian living in a westernized country, you’re weird. You’re living in a very weird time and weird place in human history.  Because we are taught to accept rational, scientific explanations for things. We’re told that if you can’t find it in a test tube or with a telescope or see it with your own two eyes, then it probably doesn...

The Bible has some hard commandments in it. “Do everything without worrying or complaining.” “Forgive 70x7 times.” “Be content in all circumstances.” “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wifi.” “Thou shalt not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.” I’m sure I’m not the only person out there who struggles with these.  OK, maybe that last one was kind of a joke. That actually is in the Bible, and...

The raising of Lazarus. The 10 Plagues in Egypt. Walking on Water. Feeding the 5,000.  There are lots of miracle in the stories that are pretty well-known, even by non-Christians. Most of them are done by Jesus, but Moses and Elijah have their fair share as well.  But there’s a miracle in II Kings 6 that’s just a bit harder to categorize. It’s not nearly as dramatic as other miracles; it doesn’t s...

Most of us would agree that God and Satan are about as different as you can get. That they are such polar opposites that it would be virtually impossible to confuse one with the other. That it would be tantamount to heresy to try to compare the two.  And yet, there’s a mystery to the identity of the figure called the “God of this World” in II Corinthians chapter 4.  Verse 4 of that chapter says In...

Last week I was discussing a weird story about Moses in Exodus 4, I came across another pretty odd verse that generates some confusion among Christians: Exodus 4:21. Now, I didn’t want to stop and analyze that verse because it would have taken me on a rabbit trail, and I was already trying to talk about a different weird thing, and I would have had to go down a weird-ception of weird-within-a-weir...

So, a funny thing happened on the way to Egypt after Moses spoke to the burning bush.  Something you have probably never heard about. Even if you have read it before, this is such a bizarre paragraph of Scripture that you probably just read right on through without stopping to dwell on it.  When most of us tell the story of Moses, we start with his origins in the Nile River, how he was born an Isr...

When I first got into ministry, I didn’t know what to do with I Kings 13. I knew God must be trying to communicate something from this story, but I couldn’t figure out what. So many things didn’t line up with my preconceptions.  You have a couple of prophets in this story. Now, in almost every Old Testament story with a prophet of God, they are the good guy. What they do is usually the heroic or b...