u/aaaaaa321123

I'm researching Christian deliverance ministry. Specifically the history of Christians casting demons from other Christians (note: not exorcism of the unsaved). It doesn't happen in the text of the Bible, but practitioners argue that early church history is filled with examples.

A charismatic reformed Baptist pastor gave me Jon Thompson's Deliverance book to study. It's well written but I'm struggling with his conclusions:

• 200 AD - He takes Tertullian's exorcism literally but scholars seem to view it rhetorically. His entire argument that the early church believed in demonized Christians hinges on this story being literal.

• 250 AD - He says the pre-baptismal exorcisms from Hippolytus were done to Christians. But the church didn't actually consider the recipients Christian until after baptism. His own source directly contradicts him.

• 350 AD - He incorrectly says that Clement wrote Clement Homilies. He then misrepresents its message to imply exorcism is needed when it simply says Christians overcome the enemy through personal faith.

I want to give the benefit of a doubt. But the central claim is that Christians delivering each other is widely present in early church history and is a core Christian practice. They argue we need to reclaim this ministry if we are truly going to follow Jesus. My most charitable read of his sources is that somewhere around 500-1000 AD this became a practice. So I come to you esteemed theologians.

Can someone point me to the earliest confirmed case of Christians casting demons from other Christians?

I'm researching the historic church's view on the topic of deliverance (Christians helping other Christians who are under attack from the enemy). I don't agree with the charismatic practice of commanding demons to manifest or leave. Someone gave me a list of sources that includes John Foxe to consider.

Foxe appears to have cast a demon from someone named Brigges by commanding it to leave.

Is the following story considered trustworthy? This approach of commanding demons seems out of line with both Calvinists and Lutheran sources I can see:

"Emphasizing this significance of Words by making a first and separate prayer for the restoration of Brigges’s speech alone, Foxe adjured Satan to depart Brigges’s body in the name of Christ Jesus. This adjuration demonstrated the power of the five-letter `weapon’ (J-E-S-U-S), for at the moment Foxe pronounced Jesus’ name, Brigges recovered his speech and cried out, `Christ Jesus, magnified and blessed be thy name, at whose name the devil ceaseth to molest thy creature. Blessed and glorified be thy name, who by the humble prayer of thy penitent servants and by the pronouncing of thy most glorious name, Jesus, the devil departeth.’ The word is the way of God: `he hath promised me by his word I shall have a way out’ -- a way out of sin and into grace, a way out of death and into life. Foxe then made a second prayer for the restoration of Brigges’s other senses. Following this prayer, Brigges’s feeling, hearing, and sight were immediately restored, with bystanders testifying that `sudden sparks of light flashed’ from his eyes, which had formerly been `as dark and dim to behold as horn’. The assembled company believed a miracle had occurred, and Brigges’s words of thanks were `Glory, praise, and power be unto thee, oh Christ, by whose power the dumb receive their speech, the deaf their hearing, and the blind their sight.’” Unfortunately, Foxe’s routing of Satan proved merely temporary. Satan returned the next day and continued to torment Brigges for another week, again depriving him of sight, hearing, and touch; engaging him in theological argument; undermining his faith in God and in his community. But May 1st marked the last battle between the two: Satan inexplicably never returned after this date. Brigges was able to resume his studies, accept his call to the bar, swear the oath of supremacy, and maintain a practice as a London barrister for nearly three decades."

This is from Kathleen Sands - "John Foxe: Exorcist"

I'm digging into a historic drought and its impact on a commodity producing region. I'm specifically trying to find the 90-day precipitation forecasts for the Midwest (in places like Kansas City) made in May of 1983 ahead of the drought that summer.

Has anyone ever pulled historic data this far back? It seems like NOAA's archive cuts off in the 90s.

I'm a bit confused on the mechanics of how a United States refinery buys and hedges grades of crude produced in the United States like Light Louisiana Sweet.

Would someone be able to explain the steps that go into crude purchasing of physical barrels? Like if I agree today to buy LLS in a month...what transactions do I do? How do I hedge it with WTI and which contract month? When do I take off those hedges?

I'm learning more about how refineries hedge physical crude with WTI futures. But it also seems like refineries buy and process WTI through futures. So this has me curious - on net, do refineries tend to buy or sell WTI futures? It seems like the transactions can cancel out...so on net are they buying or selling?

I am learning about the history of natural gas trading and it seems like there has been a clear pattern of fundamental edges slowly being erased or more accessible.

For example, John Arnold seems to have been highly successful because, in part, he was one of the first to assemble pipeline scrapes and make balances from data that everyone has access to. But now, that access is widely distributed with multiple competitors in easy packages.

It also seems like we have the same trend in weather data - companies can now run their own models because compute power is significantly cheaper.

It wasn't secret information in either of these scenarios, it was just a technical hurdle. It appears that type of thing has been mostly levelled at this point and the markets seem fairly efficient with the curve quickly adjusting to changes in forecasts. Is there any other well known edge remaining in gas fundamentals?