In this first volume of The Powers series, Walter Wink thoroughly examines the use for the terms of power in all the relevant New Testament and cognate literature. He hypothesizes that "principalities and powers" are neither demonic nor other-worldly spirits: rather they are the interdependent inner and outer poles of any given manifestation of power. It is only when a par- ticular Power becomes idolatrous that the Power becomes demonic.

Students of the New Testament have long been intrigued by references to the entities known as "principalities and powers"; angels, demons, gods, the devil, thrones, dominions, authorities, elements of the world, and so forth. Wink here contends that this rather esoteric theme is now ripe for recovery and reinterpretation, and that it provides a basis not only for a contemporary social-ecological ethic but also for a renewed Christian spirituality.

Walter Wink is Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary, New York, and the author of The Bible in Human Transformation and Unmasking the Powers (THE POWERS, volume 2).