For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete. | 2 Corinthians 10:3-6
This Sunday, we looked at the story of Saul and the Ammonites in 1 Samuel 11. In it, we see the Spirit of God come upon Saul, kindling his anger; this is the opposite of how many people think God works. For many, the Spirit of God is thought of as existing to do nothing but make us more peaceful and passive, yet as we see in this story (and as we are called to in much of the Bible), the work of the Spirit is to fight for God’s glory. This requires humility and a softening in some areas of our lives, but it also means amplifying our anger toward that which works against the worship of God. We will become LESS personally offended and MORE able fight for the good of others and honor of God. What does this fight look like? Paul gives us some guidance in 2 Corinthians 10, where he lies out three actions that are our the weapons of our warfare:
We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God
The first battle is an apologetic one. It is pushing back against the denial of God’s existence and goodness. It is to fight against those who want to give credit for creation to other things and against those who try to blame God for sin. It is an intellectual battle against an intellectual foe that uses lofty opinions to undermine God’s Word. Our role in this is to use the truth of God, as described in His Word, to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3). In this, we draw people to the truth of a loving and sovereign God who has a purpose for His creation.
Take every thought captive to obey Christ
The second battle is one of devotion. It is to learn about good and evil from the Bible and to apply it in an attempt to worship through our actions. It is to pursue holiness and to encourage others to do the same. There is this weird attempt to do away with all rules and expectations that exists in the church today, but there really is no Biblical warrant for it. As a matter of fact, the grace-based attack on holiness seems to be the very thing Paul warns us about. A love for Jesus will always manifest itself in obedience to Him; this is worth fighting for.
Punish every disobedience (when your obedience is complete)
The third battle is to actually attack those things that prevent good from being achieved. This begins with an internal struggle against your own sin, but overflows into alleviating the suffering of the world. This is living out the ‘ministry of reconciliation’ that Paul introduces in 2 Corinthians 5. It is seeing the suffering of this world as something that God is against and something we can play a role in alleviating.
Whenever I present this, the first questions seem to be about what the evil is that we should be fighting against specifically. What exactly does it look like to take on this battle? The problem with that question is that it is most often asked without any context. Living in this world means applying God’s truth in context. Your context is made up of your own personal strengths and weaknesses, the people God has put around you, and the specific opportunities He sets up before you. Being part of His war against evil is not about mastering a specific list of goods and evils, but living out faith in every situation. It is about working out of your continually developing relationship with God. I have always appreciated Dietrich’s Bonhoeffer’s quote on this, it says:
I’m still discovering, right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing, we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God.
You don’t have to wait until you have it all figured out to become part of God’s work in this world. He will work on you and through you simultaneously. We do, however, have to fight the battle against our own unwillingness to risk for the sake of God’s glory. That in itself is the greatest battle of all.