The author hypothesizes that principalities and powers are neither demonic nor otherworldly spirits: rather they are interdependent inner and utter poles of any given manifestation of power. It is only when a particular power becomes idolatrous that the power becomes demonic.

The beginning of at least a three part exploration into "the powers".

The author spends his time in this first edition setting forth the situation, exploring lexical data and usage, discussing disputed passages, and providing provisional conclusions based on the data. Appendices go into greater detail about the usage of certain words and concepts.

The author sets forth the fundamental challenge: what does it mean to say that a given person or entity has "power"? How is power exercised? Who is behind power? In this book the author's purpose is to attempt to answer the question in terms of how those who wrote and read the New Testament in its original context would answer the question, to come to an ancient understanding of the powers to the best of our ability.

To that end he explores the "power" words used in the New Testament and related apocryphal/pseudepigraphal/patristic literature: arche, archon, exousia, dynamis, thronos, kyriotes, and onoma. He also addresses angels, evil spirits, demons, and the "angels of the nations." In those lexical discussions he provides passages with meanings that are fairly clear and uncontroversial. In so doing he demonstrates that human powers and authorities are most often the ones described but that many of the same terms are used to describe that which certain heavenly or spiritual beings control or possess as well -- the Powers.

He then discusses the various passages regarding which there is understandable dispute whether the authorities involved are human or spiritual: Romans 8:38-39, 13:1-3, 1 Corinthians 2:6-8, 15:24-27a, Ephesians 1:20-23, Colossians 1:16, 2:13-15 (although not in that order). While human or spiritual are sometimes more in view than the other in these passages, he most often encourages the reader to consider that the author has both in mind. He also addresses the use of stoicheia in Ephesians 2:1-2, 3:10, 6:12 and Colossians 2:9-10 (again, not in that order), and does well to show how the term can be used to describe the basic 4 elements of the earth but also the current conception of the order of things, the "philosophical consensus" about reality, so to speak, as well (but not astral forces, a far later concept too often retrojected upon the NT).

He then makes his conclusions based on the evidence, speaking of the portrayal in a "mythic" sense, not as an attempt to suggest it may not speak to reality, but in terms of genre of conception. He then addresses many of the issues raised in detail: material reality as pervaded by the spiritual, and thus the spiritual reality as the inner aspect of the material reality, the suggestion the spiritual powers do not have the understanding we often would imagine they do, considering heaven as the transcendental "reality" or "substantiation" of present reality, parallelism of what exists spiritually and materially, and all to suggest that in the ancient conception of things, the Powers are the spiritual forces behind both manifest physical human powers and the systemic forces behind any exercise of power, made by God as good to govern His creation but many of whom have sinned just as humans have in their exercise of free will, and able to be directed to the good or to the evil, and to which we ought to give some heed.

This is one of those issues where the post-Enlightenment mentality makes it incredibly hard to conceive of "pre-rational" conceptions of reality, too often dismissed over the past 250 years as "mere superstition." But Wink desires to take what the Scriptures are saying about the Powers deadly seriously. Even if one would ultimately conclude that the conclusions drawn are not entirely consistent with reality, if we would profess to seek to understand the nature of reality according to what God has revealed in Scripture, the endeavor itself is at least worthwhile as a process.

So far I may find reason to question some of the details; one might wonder how much weight should be given to apocryphal and especially pseudeipigrahal conceptions of things (yes, sure, they reflect someone's ideas at the time about things, and others found it at least interesting enough to read and preserve, but does that mean that what these people are thinking is right and consistent with what is revealed in the OT and NT?). And yet substantially it is hard, at least at this point, to entirely reject the endeavor and not be given reason to think deeply about these things. Perhaps indeed YHWH is YHWH of Powers, and we ought to give more consideration to the Powers than would be deemed acceptable according to the post-Enlightenment synthesis. ( )

This book was excellent in starting the Powers Trilogy by beginning to set the stage for a biblical understanding of the powers and their implications then and now(whether earthly or spiritual; good or bad, etc.). Unbeknownst to me I actually read The Powers that Be first several years ago and only discovered after the fact that it was a summary of the trilogy. While at first I felt silly for it, I'm glad that I had that and so the language was familiar as I approached this book. I don't believe I'm at the place to fully comprehend all the different implications Wink presents(mostly because some of the conversation is unfamiliar to me), I greatly appreciate what he brings to the conversation by means of trying to understand the powers. I'm looking forward to the two following books as well as getting my hands on anything I can by Wink. ( )

Great intro to the series. hold on though, he is about to blow you away in the next two volumes! ( )