ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
June 13, 2026
In one translation of Colossians 1:13, it says: “God rescued us from the dark power of Satan and brought us into the kingdom of his dear Son…” First, the preposition is not clear, but to clarify, it is speaking of God’s son, not Satan’s son… just to clarify. The language of “dark power of Satan” is quite ominous and unsettling. It depicts an entity that is not God, exerting a formidable influence over us, yet God has miraculously rescued us. Wonderful news! Yet here is the strange part — in the Greek, at least the Greek text I was able to look at, the word Satan does not appear. Moreover, every scholarly article I’ve come across agrees that Satan does not appear. Most translations simply speak of this powerful darkness, yet the addition of that one word really changes the meaning for me. It puts all the blame on this opponent of God and does not accept any sort of personal responsibility. Now my theology believes there is real evil in this world, though I don’t like personifying it with a horned creature with a pitchfork. But the evil I see and believe exists is rooted in choices human beings have made. Selfishness, greed, hunger for power, and hatefulness born of insecurity—when such things take on a collective nature, a power begins to emerge that is not easily stopped. I think of Nazi Germany. It started out like a slow drip that played on the fragility of the emasculated German culture post-WWI. Scapegoating those without power, while claiming it was time to make Germany great again, did not do anything to heal the wounded psyches of a nation. But it did make the masses easily susceptible to a charismatic narcissist who could easily explain and cast blame for all their problems. Suddenly, an evil that was more than the collective sinfulness cast a forbidding shadow over everything, but especially anyone who raised a concern. It’s interesting that German propaganda often depicted Jews as the embodiment of satan. When you have someone or something that you believe to be the manifestation of true evil, all energy is focused on it. And at no point does anyone pause long enough to ask whether or not this anger is correctly focused, and even more so, whether or not there is something inside of the masses that needs healing… a healing that will never be found as long as there is some sort of satan to blame. I raise this because a translation added a word that some will assume to be correct, or even if they learn otherwise, it might be dismissed without thought. But I find it to be incredibly dangerous as it reduces our capacity to have real conversations about the evil that is causing immense suffering in the world, an evil that may require some real and honest internal work to see how misguided hatred and blame only feed this real evil destroying lives.
Holy God, Healing Spirit – move over us and work within us as we do the necessary work to name and mend the woundedness within. Insecurity, no matter how deeply we think it is buried, will shape our thinking and drive our actions in ways that do not serve the sacred calling of Jesus. Holy God, Healing Spirit – move over us and work within us… please. Amen.
