We cannot help but deal with this question when we confront this passage and many others like it in the Gospels. Some folks believe in demons at face value in exactly the same way the Bible speaks of demons. Many people today claim to have experienced demons firsthand and some claim to have exorcised them. Perhaps some of you have had an experience with demons, and you are absolutely convinced of their reality. You have, no doubt, heard many pastors and theologians explain the ins and outs of demonology.
Many religious people take their demons ever so seriously.
But, when I come to passages like this in the Bible, I find myself struggling because I have never had an experience of demons just like that described in the Bible. I have never experienced a demon that was a semi-physical creature, one that spoke aloud or one that I could describe. I have certainly never experienced anything like that portrayed on the 1970s movie The Exorcist. I have never met a person whom I automatically concluded was possessed by demons. I have never performed an exorcism.