Over all

Paul Hiebert, a very clever man, came up with a dumb term for an insightful concept. He observed that people in non-Westerner cultures recognise myriad spiritual beings, which are regarded as very much involved in everyday life. Westerners tend to ignore the existance of these beings, and divide the world into an upper region (where God dwells) and a lower (where we dwell). And so he called the neglected realm of other spiritual beings the 'excluded middle'. The reason I think this is a silly term is because I don't think that the Bible gives us warrant to think of these beings as having their own special domain. Rather, the Bible speaks of God and his angels, and satan and his demons all in the one 'spiritual' category.

Anyway I wanted to say that when people from the non-Western world become Christians they really struggle to believe that God has power over the spirit world. So when they get sick they think this is somehow out of God's domain and they go to a witchdoctor for answers. But we Westerners do much the same thing - when we become Christians we really struggle to believe that God has power over the material world. So when our car breaks down we think that this is somehow out of God's domain and we fiddle around under the bonnet. God is, in truth, more powerful than all things and is ever in control of all things, and it is good for us to recognise this.


H/T Chris