Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament

The reader of this work will search in vain for a definition of power. It is one of those words that everyone understands perfectly well until asked to define it. Our use of the term 'power' is laden with assumptions drawn from the contemporary materialistic worldview. Whereas the ancients always understood power as the confluence of both spiritual and material factors, we tend to see it as primarily material. We do not think in terms of spirits, ghosts, demons, or gods as the effective age...