After six humid summers in Burma (now Myanmar), where temperatures topped 100 degrees, Adoniram Judson (1788–1850) hadn’t seen a single convert. Malaria, dysentery, and other diseases threatened the weary American and eventually took the lives of several members of his beloved family. Excruciating trials on top of terrible disappointments punctuated his 38 years of gospel labor.

What kept Judson going as he ran into hard circumstances and hard hearts? Judson explained to his dear friend Luther Rice, “An almighty and faithful God will perform his promises.” Judson rooted his hope in God’s ability and commitment to save sinners.

While the global landscape has changed dramatically since Judson’s day, the human heart has not. Today’s mission field requires men and women who, like Judson, stake everything on the fact that God alone can and will perform his saving promises.

Missionaries as Midwives

Only God can enliven dead hearts. The biblical doctrine of regeneration teaches that, in connection with hearing the gospel proclaimed (Romans 10:14), the Holy Spirit brings a sinner’s spiritually dead soul to life (Ephesians 2:1, 8–9). His quickening alone enables a sinner to repent and believe. In other words, regeneration by the Holy Spirit leads to saving faith. The Holy Spirit’s work does not merely make faith possible; it makes faith certain. No one whom the Holy Spirit regenerates fails to come to faith in Christ (Romans 8:30), and no one comes to faith in Christ apart from the Spirit first remaking his rebel heart.

Grasping this doctrine gives a missionary the privilege of proclaiming the gospel that brings new birth. It also relieves him of the burden of believing it’s up to him to produce conversions. A faithful missionary is like a midwife who supports the mother as she ushers her child into the world. While the missionary’s job is not to resurrect the dead, he does play a God-ordained role in a sinner’s rebirth. God graciously uses means to accomplish his salvation plan; therefore, missionaries help the helpless on their path to new and everlasting life by declaring the gospel.

On the mission field, knowing this difference between what a missionary does and doesn’t accomplish among the lost is essential — and the implications may be eternal.

Guarding the Gospel

Just as a missionary headed to a foreign land vaccinates against potential diseases, adopting a midwife mentality inoculates the missionary from both distorting the gospel message and deploying dangerous means toward noble ends. Missionaries long to see unreached people turn “from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven” (1 Thessalonians 1:9–10), but good intentions can go awry if left unguarded by sound doctrine.

It was the apostle Paul’s conviction that God alone can shine gospel light into dark hearts that kept him from surrendering to discouragement, tampering with God’s word, or doing ministry in “underhanded ways” (2 Corinthians 4:1–6). Because Paul understood that only God authors life, he committed himself to declaring the truth openly — no matter the cost (2 Corinthians 4:2). Paul didn’t distort the gospel message or use methods that dilute its truth because he was confident in God’s ability to revive dead hearts through his own word.

Today’s missionaries face threats of both gospel dilution and gospel distortion because an anemic doctrine of regeneration threatens gospel clarity. Some missionaries insist on rapid, contrived methods for converting people and for measuring that growth. Others baptize “converts” from Muslim backgrounds who do not confess or understand Jesus to be the Son of God. Syncretism fundamentally refuses to rely on the power of God for conversion. Rather than accept their role as midwives who have a front-row seat to God’s resurrection power, too many missionaries try to take over his position.

“The work of converting souls is God’s from beginning to end.”

A biblical view of regeneration also defends missionaries against pride. It frees us to labor in the humility that Jonah found only in the belly of the great fish, where he finally accepted that “salvation belongs to the Lord” (Jonah 2:9) — not to us. Though our enemy would have us think otherwise, we are God’s servants by grace, not by necessity. Midwives may be helpful, but they are not primary. Missionaries may walk alongside the person God saves, but missionaries don’t produce anyone’s salvation. The work of converting souls is God’s from beginning to end.
Embracing this truth destroys pride.

Empowering Faithfulness

A biblical perspective on regeneration does more than protect. It empowers missionaries to walk in faithfulness for the long haul. The midwife doesn’t run when the labor becomes difficult. When the birth pains intensify, her presence is most strategic and needed.

Rightly understanding regeneration equips missionaries with the discipline to be prayerfully patient — to persevere when persecution, or monotony, intensifies. What kept the great missionaries of history — like Amy Carmichael, David Livingstone, and William Carey — laboring in the hardest fields with patience? They knew that one person plants and another waters, but God gives the growth (1 Corinthians 3:6). His growing power encourages missionaries to play their part over months and years, trusting God will supply the advance in his time. Missionaries are not in charge of when God delivers on his promises any more than a midwife decides when a child will be born. Both balance expectation and patience as they wait.

Pragmatism is a great temptation on the field. A missionary’s dreams of converting the unreached can quickly melt into disappointments. God often makes his choice laborers more aware of setbacks than successes. In those times, missionaries must lean on what was true for Paul and Judson, because it’s still true for us. Despite his suffering, Paul knew that no disappointment, discouragement, or dark heart has ever prevented God’s power to shine forth “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). The supernatural reality that God authors life in deserts of death redirects our focus from the seen to the unseen.

Raising Expectations

In God’s kindness, a missionary’s hope isn’t denied; it’s just sometimes deferred. What we can’t see today will become clear in eternity. God’s sovereign work means that he alone determines the depth and breadth of a missionary’s ministry. Who knows if God has called you to till very hard soil today so that he might produce enduring, unimaginable fruit after many tomorrows? The biblical view of regeneration showers the missionary with the confidence to labor expectantly, knowing we serve a God who will vindicate himself and his servants by melting hearts of stone. We will see that vindication fully in the next life.

“Our responsibility is simply to proclaim the life that God alone can give.”

If the New Testament shows us that the normal Christian life is costly, how much more costly might the mission field prove? And yet, the same New Testament reveals that missionaries can persevere for the long haul — even when we sacrifice the comforts of our homes only to meet disappointments and dead hearts. For missionaries, God’s power to give life means that whether Jonah is caught in the belly of a fish or Paul is clinging to a plank in the sea (Acts 27:43–44), no circumstance or human heart lies beyond his sovereign directing.

If you feel alone on the mission field, or if the hard soil seems to mock your efforts, lean into your role as a spiritual midwife: as a missionary who comes alongside the work God is doing, knowing that he has been doing that work since long before you arrived on the scene. We can’t manufacture conversions, and we shouldn’t try — because the outcome is not on our shoulders. Our responsibility is simply to proclaim the life that God alone can give.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast as we begin this June together. Pastor John, today in our Bible reading we arrive at Ephesians 2:1–10 — an incredibly important text, and one you have mentioned in your works over 1,400 times over the decades. It is a mega-text in your legacy, I would call it, one you could talk about for hours and hours on end. But it includes a curious little line that you rarely talk about, especially compared to the other glorious points Paul makes here. I’m talking about the singular title he gives to the devil — that the devil is “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2).

All sorts of interpretations have been suggested for this over the decades. Historically, back in the 1920s and 1930s, as gospel programming was first introduced to broadcast radio, one critique said that any attempt to preach over the airwaves was “doomed to fail” because such ministry “operates in the very realm in which Satan is supreme. Is he not ‘the prince of the power of the air’?” So, there’s like a cosmological dimension to his reign.

That argument is basically dead today, but questions remain. APJ listeners want to know what that means that Satan is the “power of the air”? One of our listeners, named Emon, wants to know “if this implies that Satan is omnipresent or all-seeing.” Other listeners want to know how Satan influences “the air” and how it is that his reign as “the prince of the power of the air” leads him to coerce disobedience from sinners, as Paul implies here in the broader context of Ephesians 2:1–3. What kind of power, Pastor John, is Paul ascribing to the devil in this verse?

Well, first, let me suggest a principle of interpretation that I think is really important, especially for a certain mindset that is constantly fascinated with marginal, uncertain things in the Bible instead of being thrilled with central, sure, glorious things in the Bible. The principle is this: don’t let speculations about what you don’t know control or dominate the things that are clear in the Bible that you do know. That’s the principle. We know many clear, true things about Satan and his work in the world that are stated plainly in the Bible, and it would not be wise to start speculating about what we are unsure of — namely, the meaning of air in “the prince of the power of the air” — in a way that would contradict or dominate those clear, true things.

“Don’t let speculations about what you don’t know control or dominate the things that are clear in the Bible.”

Scholars and commentators, including me, are not generally confident or certain about why Satan is called “the prince of the power of the air” in Ephesians 2:2. There are pointers — I won’t stop here; I have something to say; we’re not left in the dark about what this probably signifies — but it would be unwise to put too much emphasis on what I’m about to say, because even though it’s important (it’s in the Bible), it’s not nearly as important as other clear things, I think, even in these verses and elsewhere in the New Testament. So, that’s the first thing, a principle.

Clearing the Air

The second thing we need to do, just by way of preparation, is to clear away some confusion. To say that Satan is “the prince of the power of the air” does not mean we should stop living and breathing and speaking and looking through the air. Air is what exists between the page of the Bible and your eye. Air is what exists between the preacher’s mouth and your ear. To say that we shouldn’t broadcast the truth through airwaves would also mean you shouldn’t preach into the air or look at the Bible through the air. That’s nonsense.

There’s a battle to be fought with the prince of the air, but you don’t fight it by stopping hearing through the air or seeing through the air or moving through the air. Okay, let’s just get that out of the way. To claim that you shouldn’t do radio or Wi-Fi or something like that is to over-prove what you’re trying to do, because it’s going to cancel out all preaching and all Bible reading, which happen through the air.

And we can add this: the fact that Satan has some measure of authority in the air does not imply that he’s omnipresent or omniscient. We are not told in the Bible the extent of Satan’s knowledge or how a non-spatial reality like a spirit — which he’s called in this very verse, “the spirit” that is dominating “the sons of disobedience” — with no up, down, or sideways reality, positions himself in the world. But he’s not God. He does not share God’s omniscience and omnipresence, but we do know that he has many unclean spirits, demons, at his disposal, and they are deployed all over the world in the air. The air is where his flaming arrows fly, according to Ephesians 6:16.

Evaluting the Enemy

Here’s what Paul said; let’s get the text in front of us:

You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the [age, sometimes translated “the course”] of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. (Ephesians 2:1–2)

So, here are some pointers that collectively bring some clarity, I think, to this term “prince of the power of the air.”

1. Air Above Us

First, the air is simply what Paul and people in his time called the space above the earth, and they had no scientific awareness of how high the air went. As far as they knew, it just went on and on, so human life takes place in the lower part of this air where it meets the earth. That’s where we live. That’s point number one. It’s just a general statement about the sphere of our life.

2. Layers of Air

Second, in Matthew 6:26, Jesus says, “[Consider] the birds of the air.” Now, the reason that’s significant is because the word translated air is heaven. It’s translated heaven almost everywhere. The term heaven in the New Testament was very broad in its usage, referring to layers that are above the earth, sometimes called the sky. Nehemiah 9:6 refers to “heaven [and] the heaven of heavens,” where the stars are. And Psalm 148:4 refers to the “highest heavens.” In 2 Corinthians 12:2, Paul refers to “the third heaven.”

“We have the victory over this one with whom we are contending in the air.”

Since Jesus uses the word heaven interchangeably with air, where the birds fly, we can think of various layers of air or heaven. There are these heavens. In fact, the word heaven is regularly used in the plural, I think probably because it’s thought of in terms of these various layers. This is probably why Paul refers so often, like in chapter 6, to heavens where the battle with Satan happens, he says (Ephesians 6:12). So, that’s number two.

3. Seated in Heaven

Third, the term “prince of the power.” Just take those two words. “Prince of the power,” “ruler of authority” — archonta tēs exousias — is exactly the same as those two terms four verses earlier in Ephesians 1:20–21, where it says God raised Christ “and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places [the heavens], far above all rule and authority.” Now, that’s the phrase that describes the devil, “rule and authority” — “far above all rule and authority.” Far above the devil. Far above the prince of the power, the ruler of the authority, of the air.

So Satan, though he has a measure of rule and authority in the air or the heavens, is not God. He’s vastly under God. Christ is vastly superior to, over, has authority over him — so Satan’s rule in the power of the air, or in the lower air of the heavens, is not supreme. He is decisively defeated. Colossians 2:15 says, “[God] disarmed the rulers and authorities,” and that’s exactly the same phrase as “the prince of the power.” Ephesians 2:2: “The prince of the power of the air” is “the rulers of the authority of the air,” and that has been decisively disarmed at the cross.

So, he’s mortally wounded. A decisive battle has been fought, and we in Christ have a victory over him. And when it comes to Ephesians 6:12, where it says, “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities” — same phrase as back in Ephesians 2:2 — “in the heavenly places,” those heavenly places are evidently layers of heavens, the layers of the air above the earth but below the highest heaven, where Christ sits supreme, governing all things. And we have the victory over this one with whom we are contending in the air.

4. ‘God of This World’

Fourth, Paul calls Satan “the god of this world” in 2 Corinthians 4:4. I think “god of this world” and “ruler of the authority of the air” are virtually interchangeable terms, with the world being the sphere in which we live and the air being the sphere in which we live. They refer to the same thing.

Live with Boldness

So, here are four implications I draw from Paul’s calling Satan the prince of the power of the air:

Satan is a spirit who is invisible like air, not like flesh and blood, according to Ephesians 6:12.
There’s no place to go while we breathe air where the flaming arrows of Satan will not fly through the air at us (Ephesians 6:16).
Any place we go where there’s air, heaven, sky, space, we will need to wear the armor of God and do battle with the word of God and the shield of faith.
Christ is exalted as King to the highest heaven, above all rule and authority. The prince of the power of the air is not sovereign. He is on a leash.

John says, “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19), but those who are born of God he cannot touch; he cannot destroy (1 John 5:18). We should believe that; we should take up the armor of God and live with that kind of boldness.

Audio Transcript

Happy Friday, and welcome back to the podcast. I hope your Thanksgiving was full. We end this holiday week on the podcast with an email from a young man named Payton. Payton writes this: “Pastor John, hello! Thank you for your Look at the Book video series. I used them to prepare a recent lesson I taught on 1 Peter 3:8–22. Later on I found your exegesis of 1 Peter 4:15 very helpful to understand the role of suffering in the Christian life.

“One of your four conclusions was this: ‘Don’t prioritize the value of suffering above the value of doing good.’ I think that’s a relevant word in this age, when getting hated or deleted online is a badge of accomplishment. You draw out a powerful application from this text as for why. But I’m failing to connect this point of application to the text itself. Can you elaborate on what you mean by this conclusion and how Peter is conveying this message to his readers? Also, how might we apply this in our daily walk as we battle unjust suffering? Thank you!”

Okay. Let’s get everybody up to speed. Here’s the context of 1 Peter 4:13–16:

Rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. (1 Peter 4:13–16)

Not All Suffering Is Equal

What arrested my attention in that text that Payton is referring to is how obvious it is that we ought not to suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or a meddler. In fact, it seems so obvious that you wonder, “Why did Peter feel the need to write, ‘Let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler’?” He certainly did not mean, “It’s okay if you murder and steal and do evil and meddle — just don’t get caught and suffer for it.” That’s not what he meant.

So why did Peter say that? Why didn’t he just say, “Don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t do evil, don’t meddle,” instead of saying, “Don’t suffer for it”? Well, evidently — because of Peter’s teaching on the necessity and value of suffering in this book, especially in 1 Peter 1, where suffering functions like fire, to burn away the dross out of the gold of our faith (1 Peter 1:6–7) — some people were saying that any suffering is good, even if it’s suffering for doing bad things. It’s good for you.

Now, there are two other texts in 1 Peter that make me think that. They confirm I’m on the right track when I guess that might be what’s going on here. For example, in 1 Peter 2:19–20, he says, “This is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure?” Now, why would Peter have to say that? “What credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure?” It sounds like somebody is saying there’s some credit in that. There’s some credit in suffering, even if you got beaten because you sinned. And Peter’s saying, “What? There’s no credit in that.”

Or here’s another text pointing in the same direction. First Peter 3:17 says, “It is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil” (1 Peter 3:17). Well, how obvious is that? Maybe not so obvious if somebody hears Peter saying, “It’s better to be on the receiving end of injustice than to be on the giving end of injustice,” which is in fact what he’s saying. That might be a little hard for people to swallow.

Four Lessons on Suffering

So I circled back to 1 Peter 4:15 when I was working on that Look at the Book session — where it says, “Let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler” — and I drew out four lessons that Payton is zeroing in on here.

1. It is not a matter of indifference whether you suffer for doing good or suffer for doing evil. Anyone who says that suffering for evil does as much good for you as suffering for good is not paying attention to the apostle’s teaching. That was my first lesson.

2. There’s no credit, no honor, that comes from suffering for sin.

3. Injustice against you is better than your doing the injustice.

4. Don’t prioritize the value of suffering above the value of doing good.

“There’s no credit, no honor, that comes from suffering for sin.”

This last one is what Payton is asking about when he says, “Can you elaborate on what you mean by this conclusion and how Peter is conveying this message to his readers?” Well, the way Peter is conveying the thought — “Don’t prioritize the value of suffering above the value of doing good” — is by the imperatives that run right through this entire letter: “Do good,” “Love,” “Be holy” (1 Peter 1:15, 1:22, 2:15, 3:6, 3:11, etc.). That’s what we are to pursue: do good; love; be holy — not suffering. Suffering is not to be sought. Doing good is to be sought. Suffering will come, but it’s not the goal; love is the goal. Suffering is the price of love, but it’s not the aim of love. So don’t go looking for trouble. Don’t seek to suffer. Don’t seek to be persecuted; seek to love at any cost, including persecution or suffering.

Do as Much Good as You Can

And then Payton’s last question is, “How might we apply this in our daily walk as we battle unjust suffering?” Well, the way it applies to battling against unjust suffering — indeed, against natural suffering like disease or calamity — is that it directs our attention outward to others, not inward to ourselves. If we said, “Seek suffering for righteousness’ sake”, the focus would be on the pain we experience, not the blessing others experience. The focus would be on our heroic ability to endure suffering, not the lowly path of serving others. There’s a huge difference between the crusade to attract criticism and the crusade to do as much good as you can and leave the persecution to God — leave it to be what he makes of it.

“Do good, and hope for a good reception for your good, but if suffering comes, you’re blessed.”

Peter says, “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it” (1 Peter 3:10). So, do good; pursue peace. And then he follows that with these words. “Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled” (1 Peter 3:13–14).

In other words, do good, and hope for a good reception for your good, but if suffering comes, you’re blessed. There’s a great difference between this approach to life than if you were to say that suffering is the main thing, and so let’s seek it. No. Love is the main thing, so let’s do it.