Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus be cursed," and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:3
I used to think that this meant that evil spirits could not say "Jesus is Lord" and that to test the evil spirits we would ask them to say "jesus is lord" but my friend was being oppressed by an evil spirit that said Jesus is Lord so now I am confused as to what the above verse means?
Are you possibly confusing this 1 Cor 12.3 with 1 John 4.1-3?
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. [SUP]2 [/SUP]Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
[SUP]3 [/SUP]And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
Always remember these 3 basic rules for interpretating scriptures:
1) Who is talking
2) What is that person talking to?
3) What is the person saying to who he/she is talking to i n the passage, just not verse.
If we apply these 3 rules to all of 1 Cor 12 and just not 1 Cor 12.3 we interpret it the following:
1) Who is talking?
The Apostle Paul
2) What is that person talking to?
The church at Corinth
3) What is the person saying to who he/she is talking to in the passage, just not a single verse.
In verse 1 Paul is telling the church at Corinth that they should not be ignorant of Spiritual gifts and I want you to understand this, the the Spirit does give us gifts for service in the Christian walk.
In verse 2 Paul is telling the church at Corinth, they were once pagans and swept away by worshiping speechless idols
In verse 3 Paul is telling them because of the things mentioned in Vs 1 & 2, you need to know that on one by the power of the Holy Spirit will curse Jesus and no one can claim Jesus is Lord by by the same Holy Spirit.
The rest of the passage or chapter 12 deals with the 9 Gifts of the Holy Spirit and then church unity using those gifts.
So with that said, it is evident these verses have little to do with testing evil spirits, as 1 John 4.1-3 is about.
You would also do well to study the historical context of the Church at Corinth, to gain knowledge about the pagan practices of that time.
This is jsut a very skim view of what it is talking about and I wil lleave the deeper things to your study.