I found this short excerpt on Soulgazers site interesting. Pastor Robert Woods explanation of Archons.
By Robert Wood
I have withheld from talking about this topic due to the power that the rulers of this age have but it might be good to touch on them since they are relevant to the faith. After all as Paul state, our fight is not against flesh and blood but the rulers of this age. The Rulers are just that, beings/forces that control our lives. Whether they are actual beings or just forces of nature, I am going to leave that to the reader to decide upon. The rulers primary function is to keep a system in check. They are like assistants to an incompetent manager who want to help the manager keep his/her job and by extension keep their jobs. They ensure policies are enforced and try to undermine any employee that points out problems in the workplace. They want things to stay the way they are and are reluctant to change unless they can control it. They are masters of spin. When something bad happens they will try to play it off as if it is something good.
Another example of the rulers in action is the concept of fate. It is no coincidence that the rulers are associated with the astrological signs or days of the week (thank you Jeremy Puma for pointing this out). The idea of fate is an illusion because very few things in life are actually set in stone and you will go crazy trying to predict all the things that will happen to you in life. And that is what the rulers want. They want you to obsess over things you do not have control over and lose sight of what is important in life. They try to get you to focus on trivial subjects. They are crafty though, even if what you are pursuing is important to your survival or something for loved one, they will try to make you forget why you are pursuing it in the first place. They try to breed obsession over the task you are assigned or have assigned for yourself.
Now are the archons, bad or good.? The answer is that they are indifferent; they just care about the laws being enforced. Some laws are good, some laws are bad, but laws are laws. They are a set of instructions and are not perfect. If they were, then lawyers would be out of business. The only good they see is obedience and the only evil they see is disobedience. They are warped reflections of a perfect law which cannot exist in this World of Forms. We live in a world where we have to choose between evils and sometimes the lawful choice is not good. Sometimes evil is even made into law, like chattel slavery or segregation.
The insistence that the law is perfect is a lie of the rulers. Both Jesus and Paul saw the problems with the Law and the insistence that it would lead to salvation. They recognized the imperfections of law, and how without compassion and understanding, the law becomes an indifferent machine. It becomes a tool for the wicked to persecute and control others. They revealed that being lawful does not make one a holy person nor does the law alone make people holy. They taught that holiness comes from compassion, understanding, and forgiveness. Christ ultimately showed that the law is powerless when it is confronted with truth. The archons get their power from fragments of truth. They build a system around the fragments, filling in the gaps to build something that eventually is not truth. When their devices are compared to the truth which those fragments came from, they are put to shame.
The archons may have fragments of truth but their system is not truth. It is a construction based on a fragment of truth. When compared to the original source it is a cheap knock off. Like a counterfeiter, they try to trick you into thinking that they have the real deal. But like any counterfeit, when you have been trained to recognize the real deal you can point why it is a fake. They do not like you questioning about the quality of their wares, they just want you to accept it and go on your happy way. So are the archons forces of nature, psychological forces, or other worldly beings.? Again Ill let you be the judge and figure that one on your own. Whatever the archons are exactly, their agenda is about maintaining control and keeping you in line with the systems they administer, whatever shape it takes.
By Robert Wood
I have withheld from talking about this topic due to the power that the rulers of this age have but it might be good to touch on them since they are relevant to the faith. After all as Paul state, our fight is not against flesh and blood but the rulers of this age. The Rulers are just that, beings/forces that control our lives. Whether they are actual beings or just forces of nature, I am going to leave that to the reader to decide upon. The rulers primary function is to keep a system in check. They are like assistants to an incompetent manager who want to help the manager keep his/her job and by extension keep their jobs. They ensure policies are enforced and try to undermine any employee that points out problems in the workplace. They want things to stay the way they are and are reluctant to change unless they can control it. They are masters of spin. When something bad happens they will try to play it off as if it is something good.
Another example of the rulers in action is the concept of fate. It is no coincidence that the rulers are associated with the astrological signs or days of the week (thank you Jeremy Puma for pointing this out). The idea of fate is an illusion because very few things in life are actually set in stone and you will go crazy trying to predict all the things that will happen to you in life. And that is what the rulers want. They want you to obsess over things you do not have control over and lose sight of what is important in life. They try to get you to focus on trivial subjects. They are crafty though, even if what you are pursuing is important to your survival or something for loved one, they will try to make you forget why you are pursuing it in the first place. They try to breed obsession over the task you are assigned or have assigned for yourself.
Now are the archons, bad or good.? The answer is that they are indifferent; they just care about the laws being enforced. Some laws are good, some laws are bad, but laws are laws. They are a set of instructions and are not perfect. If they were, then lawyers would be out of business. The only good they see is obedience and the only evil they see is disobedience. They are warped reflections of a perfect law which cannot exist in this World of Forms. We live in a world where we have to choose between evils and sometimes the lawful choice is not good. Sometimes evil is even made into law, like chattel slavery or segregation.
The insistence that the law is perfect is a lie of the rulers. Both Jesus and Paul saw the problems with the Law and the insistence that it would lead to salvation. They recognized the imperfections of law, and how without compassion and understanding, the law becomes an indifferent machine. It becomes a tool for the wicked to persecute and control others. They revealed that being lawful does not make one a holy person nor does the law alone make people holy. They taught that holiness comes from compassion, understanding, and forgiveness. Christ ultimately showed that the law is powerless when it is confronted with truth. The archons get their power from fragments of truth. They build a system around the fragments, filling in the gaps to build something that eventually is not truth. When their devices are compared to the truth which those fragments came from, they are put to shame.
The archons may have fragments of truth but their system is not truth. It is a construction based on a fragment of truth. When compared to the original source it is a cheap knock off. Like a counterfeiter, they try to trick you into thinking that they have the real deal. But like any counterfeit, when you have been trained to recognize the real deal you can point why it is a fake. They do not like you questioning about the quality of their wares, they just want you to accept it and go on your happy way. So are the archons forces of nature, psychological forces, or other worldly beings.? Again Ill let you be the judge and figure that one on your own. Whatever the archons are exactly, their agenda is about maintaining control and keeping you in line with the systems they administer, whatever shape it takes.
