Doesn’t the phrase ‘possessed with a devil’ infer to ownership?
Absolutely not! God’s Word clearly tells us that all souls belong to God, who created them:
Ezekiel 18:4, God says clearly, “Behold, all souls are mine…”
Even the soul of the non-believer belongs to God. There is absolutely no evidence in the Bible that a demon can actually own a person’s soul.
The phrase ‘possessed with a devil’ is rooted in the Greek word daimonizomai, which can mean a variety of things, but for the most part, it is referring to a person who has a demon or is in bondage to one. This can be as simple as the person being unable to speak (see Matthew 9:32-33), having a physical infirmity caused by a demon (see Luke 13:11-12,16) or mental illness caused by a demon (Matthew 17:15,18).