Luke
11:24-26 - “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.”

I wasn't sure what this passage was talking about, but then I followed a chain reference listed in my bible and it pointed me to 2 Peter 2:20.  This verse in 2 Peter mentions that a person is worse off if they have decided to follow a pagan lifestyle after first having embraced (and then fallen away from) a relationship with Jesus.  This idea of being worse off is mentioned elsewhere in the bible, such as in Hebrews 6:4 or Hebrews 10:26, which talk about how when a person has participated in the life of Christ, but then has fallen away, he or she cannot return again.  I'm sure a major study could be done on this idea of falling away from Christ.  I'd be interested in taking a survey to see if in fact those who have sincerely rejected Christ made some sort of comeback in later years.  I'm guessing from the content of these verses that such a comeback is impossible if rejection has truly taken place.  The point is not to scare us into following Jesus and making sure we don't fall away.  This is straying from the original passage in Luke, but I think what we can learn is that if we wholeheartedly follow Christ, we have nothing to fear.  But I would appreciate comments on this theological question.

The demon-possessed man

Luke
Why would Jesus send the demons into a herd of pigs?  That was my question when I read Luke 8:26-39.  After a bit of digging on the internet (from the links below), I found that there were a number of reasons that Jesus may have done this.  We don't really know much of the context of this story, like who the nearby farmers were, so there is a bit of guessing involved.  Either way, Jesus probably commanded the demons to enter the pigs to show his power over all creation, even these evil spirits.  Moreover, we can learn from this passage that Jesus has control even over demons, and that demons have very little power of their own - they couldn't even leave the man of their own accord, really.  They had to wait for Jesus to tell them where to go.

We can take heart that when we call on Jesus to rescue us from evil, he can do it!

If this topic on demon-possesion is of interest to you, check out the following links: a comparison of the various gospel versions of this story or a commentary on the Luke passage.