The Exorcist's Bestiary

Preaching is a funny thing. The very same sermon can make one person feel incredibly empowered and another person feel utterly defeated.

This conundrum isn’t always on the preacher. While critique might help them learn how to have more tact in their presentation and speak better around triggering themes, their words are always ultimately left in the varied minds of many listeners, each one with a different processing system and background story. The pastor is at their mercy, as their words will be scrutinized for what they did or didn’t say—for what they intended and never intended to communicate.

Toss in some spiritual warfare elements, and we can realize just how much the pastor is up against when giving a casual Sunday message. Often times when I’m removing a demon from someone, there is a twisted Bible verse or broken theological idea that needs to be healed in the person. Sometimes it’s a faulty statement they heard a pastor make, and other times it’s a well-meaning message a pastor preached that the demon twisted to promote their lies. I know this, because some of my statements have come up in deliverance sessions where I have to explain that, “While those are my words, that is entirely the wrong application or heart of what I meant by them.” I didn’t partner with the enemy in such a situation, but the enemy saw its chance to twist me against them.

Preaching is a mental and spiritual minefield—or a mindfield, if you will.

And this brings me to the wider point I’d like to make on this topic. This isn’t going to sound like good news at first, but it is: You have been reading your Bible wrong.

Scripture is full of divinely inspired preaching, especially in the red letters of Jesus. But even the red letters are not so strong that they can’t be twisted by the enemy. (Indeed, the ability to twist them is perhaps even stronger because of how inspired they are.) All of the Bible can be twisted. Jesus experienced this fact himself when Moses’s words were referenced by Satan as an attempt to get Jesus to sin.

Preaching can be a heavy task, and no preacher had to craft their message to be received by a bigger mindfield than Jesus (which is perhaps why he often chose to speak in parables instead of homilies). It is good news to recognize all of this, because deep down on spiritual, gut-wrenching level, there are passages you have not been able to let go of since you heard them. For years, something Jesus said that was supposed to be a blessing, got turned into a curse. Jesus never intended that. The Bible wasn’t written for that. But the world is a mindfield, and neither Jesus nor the Bible will remove or bypass your mind in order to get to the rest of you. You are an integrated system, and God longs to work with the whole of you. That’s why the most important commandment is to love the Lord your God with the full system of all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

The Holy Spirit longs to dismantle your mindfield and help you see and hear rightly. Jesus must weep every day for how badly his words have been twisted against us. All he ever wanted to do was love and reconcile us to him, yet the enemy takes his words and shifts them in such a way that we can’t even love ourselves.

What is that Bible passage that turns your stomach, dear Christian? The Holy Spirit is ready to show you a better way to understand it.