Thursday, June 26, 2014

How Do You Treat Satan?

Bulletin Study Starter: Sunday, June 29th, 2014
How do you treat Satan? - By Christopher Wiles
Study Starters are ideas from my personal study that are intended to get you thinking about a Bible topic by piquing your curiosity concerning spiritual things.  Hopefully they’ll inspire you to open your Bible and look into them more on your own. 

Jude: When was the last time?
A good friend and brother in Christ recently shared, “I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a sermon or done a study out of Jude.”  True, Jude, the brother of Jesus, doesn’t get the time and notoriety that Paul, John, Peter, and even his other brother, James, gets.  Yet there’s a lot we can learn from this follower of Christ and the one short chapter he writes to us.

After listing a bunch of sins of some specific unbelievers Jude names a sin that doesn’t get a lot of study time.  He says people are guilty of “reviling angelic majesties.” (v. 8) What in the world does that mean?  To illustrate the level of respect we should have for God’s created beings he shares that Michael the archangel respected Satan so much that even he wouldn’t directly rebuke Satan or pronounce judgment against him. (v. 9) Jude says these sinners revile things they don’t understand and by these things they will be destroyed. (v. 10)

When was the last time you considered your attitude toward Satan?  Sometimes preachers (myself included) are guilty of mocking and joking about this created being that even Michael won’t talk bad about.   Sometimes we’re guilty (myself included) of teaching kids lyrics to pep-rally-type songs that trash talk Satan saying things like “If the Devil’s in the way we will run right over him,” “If the Devil doesn’t like it he can sit on a tack,” and a more recent camp/VBS song titled “Little Square Box” which says:

“But if I had a little square box
to put the Devil in,
I’d take him out and STOMP HIS FACE (Kids yell while stomping the ground)
and put him back again.”

Have we been guilty of reviling, trashing, or goading someone we shouldn't?  I’m definitely not suggesting we not have fun, passion, and boldness in our preaching, singing, and children’s songs but I am wondering if we have forgotten the message from Jude to beware reviling angelic majesties that we don’t understand.  What do you think?


“Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” – 1 Corinthians 10:31b

1 comment:

Thanks for your input. May you be blessed today!