Daily Bible Reading 14th July 2026 // Luke 8:26-39
26 Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” 29 For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) 30 Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion”, for many demons had entered him. 31 And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. 32 Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 33 Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.
34 When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. 36 And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed man had been healed. 37 Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. 38 The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.
The association of demon-possession with nervous and mental symptoms is not an entirely wrong one, however, for this is a realm in which it can in fact occur. It is here that the holding of two opposite extremes can be seen to be unwarranted and dangerous. On the one hand, the assertions that all New Testament cases of devil possession are psychiatric cases simply does not, as we have seen, fit the facts; and only the philosophical assumption that demon-possession does not occur, and cannot occur, could bring one to such a position (significantly, the same kind of false argument is used to discount the idea of the miraculous - i.e. miracles cannot happen, therefore any seemingly miraculous happening must have some other explanation!). On the other hand, however, it is just as clear that an indiscriminate and uninstructed attitude which sees demon-possession in every conceivable human situation of disorder (like the 'reds under every bed' in the political sphere - which is an absurdity) is wrong and wildly exaggerated and has done more than most things to discredit the true, biblical teaching. The almost total preoccupation with demons shown in some sections of the Church is not, in our view, a healthy state. At best it can lead to the distortion of true biblical values, and at worst, it can lead to serious disorder in the spiritual life.