Cindy & SLJ,
I wasn’t trying to form a doctrine over this one verse, I’m simply implying that the door may have a crack, however small, to that possible interpretation. Of couse, we must take the whole council of God into account. I would agree, however, that if God is set to redeem all of mankind and all creation, then there is no reason to believe that He wouldn’t afford the same opportunity for his other fallen derivatives, for they too are His creation.
Cindy,
I thought as well about the aspect that the damsel was referring to “us” as the rest of Paul’s human audience, which consisted mainly of certain women down by the riverside near Phillipi . Maybe so. Yet the more I think about this girl, and the situation with this incident, the more questions arise as i examine the text and the context (and maybe I’m reading too much into it, but bear with me for a moment).
First, it is obvious that in order to quiet this woman that Paul necessitated the expulsion of the evil spirit. She quit mocking them after that. So it seems to me that it was this spirit that was propelling her to speak in that fashion. But why would the evil spirit be proclaiming that Paul and Silas were showing the way of salvation? It seems at first glance that this damsel comes seemingly out of nowhere. But it is very probable that she was among these women, another of whom was Lydia, who gathered that Sabbath to hear Paul and Silas preach. Secondly, the passage very clearly is emphasizing that this incident occurs at the time of prayer, mentioning that fact not once, but twice (vs 13, 16).
Would it not be out of the realm of possibility that the damsel’s cries, whether prompted by the spirit or by some inner yearning of herself, could have been sparked by the outpouring of prayers made during that time? We don’t know the exact nature of those prayers, but if we know the heart of Paul and SIlas, you can be sure it included the salvation of everyone they preached to.
If you know anything about spiritual warefare, prayer, as well as fasting, are essential components. Jesus told the disciples just so when they failed to cast the lunatick spirit out of the boy in Matt 17. But Paul apparently had no trouble in this particular case. Why? Because he was prepared. (Paul admits to the practice of fasting in 2 Cor 6:5, and there is no reason to believe that it wasn’t a normative practice in his ministry).
We tend to think of the Devil and his angels as wholescale liars and so when we see incidents like this we think that there must have been so sinister motive for demons crying out in possessed humans. But I’m led to believe that the power of the Gospel is such that even the devils can be affected in ways other than just in trembling fear or merely prone to decepting or mocking.
When Jesus was approached by the deranged man at Gergesenes, He spoke to the “Legion” directly, not to the man. But this Legion cried out, “What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.” (Mark 5:7) Now at the surface, it seems like this is a typical picture of demons shivering in fear of God, awaiting some judgement. But the passage tells us that this man with the Legion had come and worshipped Jesus. Yet it wasn’t the man crying out and worshipping Jesus, it was the Legion! They knew who he was and correctly addressed Jesus as the Son of the Most High. The man wasn’t in his right mind nor would he have recognized Jesus as such. And what is unusual in this case is that Legion made a request to Jesus, and Jesus granted it to them!
Why would Jesus show mercy the evil spirits in granting their request to be cast into the swine? Why did they want to be cast into the swine in the first place only to be drowned? And it begs the question of where Jesus originally intended to cast them, in this case “out of the country” (Mark 5:10). (It is possible that the Legion wanted to stay in the region because it was an area inhabited by a large demographic of Greeks, who wouldn’t be observing Jewish dietary laws, hence the pigs. I think there is something to the idea of demons possessing certain areas of land as strongholds, but that’s another study. At any rate, the demons wanted to stay local because it may have been easier to possess another being who may have Greek pagan influences than where Jesus orginally wanted to send them.)
My point being that there are hints here and there that are worth exploring concerning devils and demons apart from our conventional conception of them, that could allow us to think more broadly of the scope of God’s love in extending His grace toward them. The demons in both the case of the deranged man of Gergesenes and the case of the damsel with the divining spirit spoke the truth about those they encountered. There was no deception involved in either case. And it may be in both cases, the Presence of God in Jesus and in Paul caused something to happen to these evil spirits for the to cry out in such manner.
What an interesting way to raise the question, though!
)
