There’s a curious thing about Jesus’s encounters with demons in Mark’s gospel. They know who Jesus really is. And Jesus wants to keep them quiet.

This pairs easily with what scholars refer to as The Messianic Secret: a pattern in this gospel of Jesus trying to keep his true nature a secret as long as possible. But I think there is a parallel truth. That we don’t really want demons to be the one’s testifying.

There are corollaries in our world, of course. Of one-sided conversations or disreputable people defining the terms for us.

But it can also simply be the wrong voice and one we shouldn’t take as authoritative. Not that we need to silence problematic voices, but that we struggle once we hear them. Struggle with hearing the truth. Or the Good News.

Because demons don’t want the Way of Love to win.

And we do.