Imagine you are experiencing some kind of demonic activity in your life – you are having terrible evil dreams or constant suicidal thoughts and you seem to have no control over these things. They harrass you often and are destroying your life.

Now imagine you go to see your pastor and he says ‘ah – it’s probably an evil spirit from the Lord.’ My hunch is you’d be on the search for another pastor. There is no Christian in their right mind believes a good father would treat his child in this way and no pastor with even a hint of theological education who would offer this as an explanation.

So what then of 1 Samuel 16 where the Spirit of the Lord has left Saul and the narrator says: ‘an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.’

An evil spirit from the Lord.

It’s there in black and white. What do you do with this statement? Verses 15 and 23 re-state this same idea – that God is sending a spirit to harass Saul.

Really?

Is this how God treats his kids who have messed up? I don’t think so. Assuming, as Colossians says, that Jesus is the perfect representation of God, then it’s hard to imagine him ever doing this. The prodigal son doesn’t get treated this way. Why should Saul?

I’m sure we all have learnt ways of resolving this tension. Scripture is telling us that God is doing something out of line with his character. Some will resolve it in such a way as to make it ‘true’ – God did this – but it was a special occasion or for a certain one-off reason. Others will reject the statement and find another way to hold the integrity of scripture.

I’m curious as to how others have resolved this so I will hold off on offering my thinking – so feel free to explain to me your way of understanding. I’d like to hear.