Principalities Quotes & Sayings

understood the larger picture they were all participating in. Jesus was binding the principalities and powers over the land, and his next target was at Caesarea Philippi. — Brian Godawa

11Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. * 12For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. — Anonymous

I exist in a twenty-mile radius, but through him, I know all lands, principalities and kingdoms, peoples and customs. I need never be ashamed to go, or afraid to speak, anywhere. — Gene Stratton-Porter

If you could find a way to peel back the skin of this world so to speak, would you really see this supernatural reality that is greater? Is it true that we fight not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers? Every young person wants to know. — Ted Dekker

When the Bible used that very expression about fighting with principalities and powers and depraved hypersomatic beings at great heights (our translation is very misleading at that point, by the way) it meant that quite ordinary people were to do the fighting. — C.S. Lewis

According to Celtic law, all sons equally divided the inheritance and principalities of their father. — Sabine Baring-Gould

There are nine orders of angels, to wit, angels, archangels, virtues, powers, principalities, dominations, thrones, cherubim, and seraphim — Billy Graham

St. Thomas adopts a division of the nine choirs into three groups, according to their intellectual perfection and consequent nearness in being to God - Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; Dominations, Virtues, Powers; Principalities, Archangels, Angels. Other writers suggest different arrangements; and there is a mass of magnificent theological speculation as to the difference of function between one choir and another. But the Church has defined nothing upon this matter. — Frank Sheed

That didn't make sense to me. That he would die and raise from the dead in three days." "It is the Messianic secret, kept hidden from the principalities and the powers. And yet it was in plain sight all along." "What do you mean?" "Jesus told us that no sign shall be given this generation of ours except the sign of Jonah. He said that just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. I remember reading a revelation from the angel Gabriel that was recorded on stone and stored in the library at Qumran. — Brian Godawa

Men have imagined republics and principalities that never really existed at all. Yet the way men live is so far removed from the way they ought to live that anyone who abandons what 'is' for what 'should be' pursues his downfall rather than his preservation; for a man who strives after goodness in all his acts is sure to come to ruin, since there are so many men who are not good. — David Mitchell

I have many deep thoughts in God, but I take my own measure, lest I perish by boasting ... For I myself, though I am in chains and can comprehend heavenly things, the ranks of the angels and the hierarchy of principalities, things visible and invisible, for all this I am not yet a disciple. — Ignatius Of Antioch

He might be better considered as an exponent of Tartar financial, military, and political methods, who used the shifting alliances of khans and princes to replace the Tartar yoke with a Muscovite one. In his struggle with the Golden Horde, whose hegemony he definitively rejected after 1480, his closest ally was the Khan of the Crimea, who helped him to attack the autonomy of his fellow Christian principalities to a degree that the Tartars had never attempted. From the Muscovite point of view, which later enjoyed a monopoly, 'Ivan the Great' was the restorer of 'Russian' hegemony. From the viewpoint of the Novgorodians or the Pskovians he was the Antichrist, the destroyer of Russia's best traditions. When he came to write his will, he described himself, as his father had done, as 'the much-sinning slave of God'. — Norman Davies

do not let our princes accuse fortune for the loss of their principalities after so many years' possession, but rather their own sloth, because in quiet times they never thought there could be a change (it is a common defect in man not to make any provision in the calm against the tempest), and — Niccolo Machiavelli

The death of God has set the angels free. And they are terrible. There are principalities and powers. Angels are the thoughts of God. Now he had been dissolved into his thoughts which are beyond our conception in their nature and their multiplicity and their power. God was at least the name of something which we thought was good. Now even the name has gone and the spiritual world is scattered. There is nothing any more to prevent the magnetism of many spirits. — Iris Murdoch

The three Divine are in this hierarchy, First the Dominions, and the Virtues next;
And the third order is that of the Powers. The in the dances twain penultimate
The Principalities and Archangels wheel; The last is wholly of angelic sports.
These orders upward all of them are gazing,
And downward so prevail, that unto God
They all attracted are and all attract. — Dante Alighieri

Men and women, empires and cities, thrones, principalities, and powers, mountains, rivers, and unfathomed seas, worlds, spaces, and universes, all have their day, and all must go. — H. Rider Haggard

I'll rebel against powers and principalities, all the time. Always, I will. — Paul Thomas Anderson

Nietzsche may have been accurately describing the feeble pietism that surrounded him, the saccharine portraits of Jesus from childhood, but he could not have been more incorrect in his analysis that as a religion of the "sick soul," the preaching of Christ was simply a message of resignation to the powers and principalities. On the contrary, it was the most radical renunciation of the herd mentality that keeps us addicted to the power brokers of this age. — Michael S. Horton

CHAPTER VI
Concerning New Principalities Which Are Acquired By One's Own Arms And Ability
LET no one be surprised if, in speaking of entirely new principalities as I shall do, I adduce the highest examples both of prince and of state; because men, walking almost always in paths beaten by others, and following by imitation their deeds, are yet unable to keep entirely to the ways of others or attain to the power of those they imitate. A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme, so that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savour of it. Let him act like the clever archers who, designing to hit the mark which yet appears too far distant, and knowing the limits to which the strength of their bow attains, take aim much higher than the mark, not to reach by their strength or arrow to so great a height, but to be able with the aid of so high an aim to hit the mark they wish to reach. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Wisdom is the means that God has chosen for the Church of Jesus Christ to transform the
world and put to shame all the principalities and powers of hell. — Sunday Adelaja

When Jesus talks about conflict with "principalities and powers," he's talking about conflict with legal and political authorities. — Richard Beck

All of us have monarchs and sages for kinsmen; nay, angels and archangels for cousins; since in antediluvian days, the sons of God did verily wed with our mothers, the irresistible daughters of Eve. Thus all generations are blended: and heaven and earth of one kin: the hierarchies of seraphs in the uttermost skies; the thrones and principalities in the zodiac; the shades that roam throughout space; the nations and families, flocks and folds of the earth; one and all, brothers in essence - oh, be we then brothers indeed! All things form but one whole. — Herman Melville

The powers and principalities would hold less sway over our lives if we refused to collaborate with them. But refusal is risky, so we deny our own truth, take up lives of "self-impersonation," and betray our identities.2 — Parker J. Palmer

The sound of the white touching down all around him was like the sound of feet behind an arras, or like tiny, glottal laughter, if not of God the father, then perhaps of one of his angels, archangels, principalities, thrones, dominions, powers, seraphs, he'd known them all by heart as a choirboy in Stamford. — Garth Risk Hallberg

Nothing and no one will separate us, not life nor death, nor principalities, nor powers, nor anything that is of the heavens nor anything that is of the earth. — P.D. James

It was Jesus's ideas about truth and freedom that made him dangerous to the principalities and powers. But today our gospel isn't very dangerous. It's been tamed and domesticated. If Jesus of Nazareth had preached the paper-thin version of what passes for the "gospel" today - a shrunken, postmortem promise of going to heaven when you die - Pilate would have shrugged his shoulders and released the Nazarene, warning him not to get mixed up in the affairs of the real world. But that's not what happened. Why? Because Pilate was smart enough to understand that what Jesus was preaching was a challenge to the philosophy of empire (or as we prefer to call it today, superpower). — Brian Zahnd

The word of God has provided nine explanatory designations of the heavenly beings ... the first group is forever around God and is said to be permanently united with Him ahead of any of the others and with no intermediary. Here there are the most holy 'thrones' and the orders said to possess many eyes and many wings, called in Hebrew the 'cherubim' and 'seraphim' ... The second group ... is made up of 'authorities,' 'dominions,' and 'powers.' And the third, at the end of the heavenly hierarchies, is the group of 'angels,' 'archangels,' and 'principalities.' — Pope Dionysius

like Elijah influenced a nation to repent and overthrew principalities and powers. "Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed, the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced — Anderick Biddle

There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope. The death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. — J. Michael Straczynski

Death is 'where you run to when none of the principalities of your conscience will grant you asylum.' ... 'In my world [(Africa)] death will come chasing. In your world [(the West)] it will start whispering in your ear to destroy yourself.'
'We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? ... A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means 'I survived'
'A sad story means, this storyteller is alive. The next thing you know, something fine will happen to her, something marvellous, and she will turn around and smile. — Chris Cleave

Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality, for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done will rather bring about his ruin than his preservation. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Here's the papal proclamation of 1455 that empowered the Christian kings of Europe to enslave, plunder, and slaughter in the name of discovery: invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate to himself and his successors the kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities, dominions, possessions, and goods, and to convert them to his and their use and profit.12 — Brian D. McLaren

Joshua finished his charge to the people, "We are about to face a land of people more numerous than us, a land of giants, of cities with walls that reach up to heaven! But again, I say, be strong and courageous and fear not! For we battle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in high places! But we are surrounded by an army of Yahweh's heavenly host, ten thousand times ten thousand strong! We will triumph! Our god will triumph!" The congregation burst out in applause again. This time, it must have been heard across the plains in the very first city targeted for destruction: Jericho. — Brian Godawa

Dear rulers ... I maintain that the civil authorities are under obligation to compel the people to send their children to school ... If the government can compel such citizens as are fit for military service to bear spear and rifle, to mount ramparts, and perform other martial duties in time of war, how much more has it a right to compel the people to send their children to school, because in this case we are warring with the devil, whose object it is secretly to exhaust our cities and principalities of their strong men. — Martin Luther

Little Jem had said "Wow-ga" that morning. What were principalities and powers, the rise and fall of dynasties, the overthrow of Grit or Tory, compared with that miraculous occurrence? — L.M. Montgomery

Even the heavenly powers and the angels in their splendor and the principalities, both visible and invisible, must either believe in the Blood of Christ, or else face damnation. — Ignatius Of Antioch

I descended to the ocean floor and encountered bloated, symmetrical creatures with pumping white hearts and translucent skin. Collapsed blue civilizations lived down there, fissured and antiseptic, craggy with barnacles and blistering rust. I reached into the heart of the earth, the sky, the moon. I colonized language, mathematics, schemes of chemical order and atomic weight. I studied the manufacture of automobiles, microcircuitry, Kleenex and planets. I memorized the gross national products of nations and hemispheres, the populations of cities and states and principalities, the achievements of presidents, tyrants and kings. I was trying to learn what I suspect Mom had learned already: that there were journeys we all make alone that take us far away from one another. — Scott Bradfield

I mentioned that Jesus came to invade satan's kingdom. When He did, the long period of time covered by the Old Testament permanently changed. Jesus brought a new covenant. When precisely did things change? Theologically, they changed on the cross. Paul explains this in some detail in Colossians when he says that the Father "has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love" (Col. 1:13). He then goes on to say that we have redemption through His blood (Col. 1:14). The blood that Jesus shed on the cross defeated the enemy, or as Paul later says, "having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it" (Col. 2:15). He declares that Jesus is the "head of all principality and power" (Col. 2:10). — C. Peter Wagner

Some religions, such as Catholicism, fully endorsed slavery, as Pope Nicholas V made clear when, in 1452, he issued the radically proslavery document Dum Diversas. This was a papal bull granting Catholic countries such as Spain and Portugal "full and free permission to invade, search out, capture, and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ wherever they may be, as well as their kingdoms, duchies, counties, principalities, and other property ... and to reduce their persons into perpetual slavery."10 These last few words - to reduce their persons into perpetual slavery - sound not just sinister to us, but also psychotic. They make perfect sense, however, in a Christian context, given that the Bible is itself a heedlessly proslavery tome. — Michael Shermer

The problem is this: when we separate Jesus from his ideas for an alternative social structure, we inevitably succumb to the temptation to harness Jesus to our ideas - thus conferring upon our human political ideas an assumed divine endorsement. With little awareness of what we are doing, we find ourselves in collusion with the principalities and powers to keep the world in lockstep with the ancient choreography of violence, war, and death. We do this mostly unconsciously, but we do it. I've done it. And the result is that we reduce Jesus to being the Savior who guarantees our reservation in heaven while using him to endorse our own ideas about how to run the world. This feeds into a nationalized narrative of the gospel and leads to a state-owned Jesus. Thus, our understanding of Christ has mutated from Roman Jesus to Byzantine Jesus to German Jesus to American Jesus, etc. — Brian Zahnd

Yet even among those who are not economically poor, work remains, as a matter of experience, a great burden. Those whose work consists of serving the great corporate principalities, for instance, are subject to dehumanized, enslaving, frequently idolatrous claims over their lives. Does anyone seriously suppose that the high-ranking executives involved in the price-fixing scandals in some of the great corporations in this country are anything but prisoners, no more truly free than serfs, confined and conformed to the interest of the principalities they serve? — William Stringfellow

A living faith is always on trial; we call it faith for that reason. When I read in some alarmist book that the Christian faith is now on trial, or "at the crossroads," my impulse is to answer, Why Not? Does anybody know a time when the Christian faith was not on trial, or when the Christian life was a simple walkover, with neither principalities nor powers to dispute its advance? — John Edgar Park

We are so utterly ordinary, so commonplace, while we profess to know a Power the Twentieth Century does not reckon with. But we are "harmless," and therefore unharmed. We are spiritual pacifists, non-militants, conscientious objectors in this battle-to-the-death with principalities and powers in high places. Meekness must be had for contact with men, but brass, outspoken boldness is required to take part in the comradeship of the Cross. We are "sideliners"
coaching and criticizing the real wrestlers while content to sit by and leave the enemies of God unchallenged. The world cannot hate us, we are too much like its own. Oh that God would make us dangerous! — Jim Elliot

Death, of course, is a refuge. It's where you go when a new name, or a mask and cape, can no longer hide you from yourself. It's where you run to when none of the principalities of your conscience will grant you asylum. — Chris Cleave

That is how John explains it, and with him agrees the apostle Paul: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him; — A.W. Tozer

...it is not enough to be free
of the whips, principalities and powers — Edward Kamau Brathwaite

By faith we receive the saving grace of God that delivers us from guilt and sin. In love we participate in the victorious struggle of God against the principalities and powers of evil. — Gabriel Fackre

So too, since Christ has in principle defeated the fallen "gods" (principalities and powers) who have for ages inspired injustice, cruelty and apathy toward the weak, the poor the oppressed and the needy (Ps. 82), the church can hardly carry out its role in manifesting, on earth and in heaven, Christ's victory over these gods without taking up as a central part of its missions just these causes. We can, in truth, no more bifurcate social concerns and individual salvation than we can bifurcate the cosmic and anthropocentric dimensions of Christ's work on the cross. — Gregory A. Boyd

3. Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans; [Perhaps the word "balk" falls short of expressing the full force of the Chinese word, which implies not an attitude of defense, whereby one might be content to foil the enemy's stratagems one after another, but an active policy of counter-attack. Ho Shih puts this very clearly in his note: "When the enemy has made a plan of attack against us, we must anticipate him by delivering our own attack first."] the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces; [Isolating him from his allies. We must not forget that Sun Tzu, in speaking of hostilities, always has in mind the numerous states or principalities into which the China of his day was split up.] the next in order is to attack the enemy's army in the field; [When he is already at full strength.] and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities. 4. The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided. — Sun Tzu

This is how worship is connected to our ability to love. When we give our ultimate allegiance to any of the principalities and powers, large or small, we find ourselves perennially at war with anyone who places these things at risk. Idolatry breeds perpetual vigilance and violence. — Richard Beck

Too often, and in too many ways, we remain timid when we should be bold, fearful when we are called to be unafraid, and beholden to the principalities and powers when both the prophets of scripture and the prophets of today exhort us to rethink our allegiances. We have become the church of the Empire, the very thing Jesus urged both Jews and Gentiles of his own time to rise up against. We go through great theological contortions to prod the gospel into a justification for our comfort and complacency, and fail to recognize the vast spiritual pit that we dig for ourselves in the process. — Rick Ufford-Chase

Reality is approximately as dependable as a politician's promise ... the result is the same: Reality, of the capital "R" variety, has become as relative a thing as the dryness of our respective Martinis. Yet the struggle goes on, the fight continues. Against what? Ultimately, Powers, Principalities, Thrones, and Dominations, often contained in hosts who are themselves victims, prisoners, manipulated men and women. — Roger Zelazny

Republics have a longer life and enjoy better fortune than principalities, because they can profit by their greater internal diversity. They are the better able to meet emergencies. — Niccolo Machiavelli

In sum, when Paul writes in Ephesians 6 that our battle is against the principalities and powers, he's not just talking about demon possession, he's also talking about our struggle with political powers. — Richard Beck

He who has annexed them [some principalities], if he wishes to hold them, has only to bear in mind two considerations: the one that the family of the former lord is extinguished: the other that neither their laws not their taxes are altered. — Niccolo Machiavelli

I must accept my Father's loving help in resisting and overcoming. Sin is like an octopus with many tentacles trying to crush out my life. Seldom do all tentacles loosen their hold on me at once. It is one tentacle at a time. In this war against sin, it is a victory won through one soldier dying at a time. Seldom does the entire enemy army fall dead at a single blast. It is hand-to-hand combat. It is one small victory at a time. But God doesn't send me out to do battle without a war plan. He is my Commander; I will fight - inch by inch, hour by hour - under His direction. He dispatches the Holy Spirit to me, with clear directions on how to fight, when to run, where to strike next. This battle against principalities and powers is His — David Wilkerson

We come before God to pray for the missing and the dead, and for those who loved them ... Our purpose as a nation is firm, yet our wounds as a people are recent and unhealed and lead us to pray ... This world he created is of moral design. Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time. Goodness, remembrance, and love have no end, and the Lord of life holds all who die and all who mourn ... Neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities, nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth can separate us from God's love. — George W. Bush