This episode was prompted by a listener question. Stephen actually asked three interrelated questions. The first was, “In Luke 8:12, Jesus describes a type of person who hears the Word and then the devil snatches it away so that they do not believe and are not saved. The implication seems to be that if the devil did not snatch it away, the person would believe and be saved. How do we make sense of this category of person given total depravity?”

Question number two was, “An extension of this question would be: why does the devil need to do any work to prevent a person from believing, if the human heart is already predisposed against the truth?”

And question number three was, “If this category of person is part of the elect, why does God allow the devil to prevent their salvation?”

In this episode, Dr. Sadaphal answers all three questions. He also explains who Jesus is, what a parable is and some general principles of proper Bible interpretation.